We asked Oneman to tell us his five favourite mixes, he came back at us with these.
DJ El Sid - ’05 Mix (download here)
This is a great showcase here of some Hotflush records and other great records from the 2005 dubstep/breakstep bloom. This is still the only mix from that time I still listen to every few months, and still thoroughly enjoy. Has some of my favourite tunes of that era like Toasty’s ‘Skinny’ and Loefah’s remix of Skream’s ‘Monsoon’.
Eskimo Dance Early 2000s (not sure of date) (download here)
This captures a moment in time that I feel was one of the most important developments in British youth music culture. It features a very young Tinchy Stryder, who gets the biggest reload on the set with his gunfingers bar over Sticky’s ‘Golly Gosh’ geniusly dropped by Slimzee, and some great Wiley moments, including him recovering the crowd from a dead Donaeo flow, catching the beat with his apt ‘creep up on the riddim like a spidurrr’ lyric.
DJ Youngsta - Dubstep Allstars Volume 2 (Download (possibly illegally) here, probably best to buy it though)
This is my favourite dubstep mix ever. It really captures the best part of the 2004/05 dubstep bloom. The track selection is impeccable, mixing is tight as you like, the overall sound of this mix is perfect reflection of dark underground skunked-out London bass music of it’s time. The only producers to feature on this 13 track mix CD are D1, Skream, Loefah & Digital Mystikz.
DJ EZ - Pure Garage Volume 2 (Torrent from here, probably best to buy it though)
My serious first musical obsession. I’ve gone through about 4 copies of this CD. I first got it when released in 2000, I tried to buy every tune I could find. Pure Garage II really opened me up to all the different styles of UKG, as DJ EZ would play them all, mixing Todd Edwards tunes with Resevoir Dogs or Agent X, flipping the script and blending them together, similar to what I do today in a new context. Definitely an inspirational mix for me.
J Rocc - Sex Machine Today (Download here)
I really love this mix, from the Slum Village tunes at the start, the mix from Common ‘The Light’ into Bobby Caldwell’s original and back into the Common version, the scratching, pitch bending & mad cuts on Mobb Deep’s Quiet Storm instrumental, to the reggae selection at the end of the CD (something which they used to do at the end of Sex Machine nights). J Rocc is a genius!