Richie Rich* - Hardware #05

I don't know much about the technical side of mixing, but I know what I like and this CD rocks. Richie Rich could have made this CD just for me. It's got some of my favourite tunes on it, including a bunch that I've never heard before but have fallen completely in love with. I'm listening to it right now for example, and I know that I LOVE track ten, but track 9 is on right now, and it's blowing me away. All right, that's the emotional stuff out of the way, so let me tell you a bit about it.

Hardware 05 is beautiful tech/tech house.

It's a 2 CD set and the first one, in my opinion, is better. There's nothing wrong with the second one, but the first one WILL move you. The track list reads like a who's who of techno: Jeff Mills, Christian Smith & John Selway, Gaetek, Richie Hawtin, Ben Sims, Marco Carola & Adam Beyer and Gaetano Parisio to name just a few, and that's just on the first disc! Standout tracks for me are Millsart's Step to Enchantment, Gaetek's A1 CRNFO5 (what the fuck?), the HMC remix of Rob Little's Pulsate, and last but not least, the stompin' Marine Blue by Marco Carola and Adam Beyer.

All I'm going to say about CD two is that it features my current world-wide favourite tech track which is Love Story by Andrew McLaughlin. I've only heard this track 3 times in Sydney, (Jeff Mills@home, Will E Tell@Moon001 and Richie Rich@Tweekin) but it's about to be re-released by Bush Records so keep an eye out for it.

According to Richie, this CD is what Hardware is all about. "I'm really happy with it", Richie said, "It's all the tunes I like."

It's not as easy as it sounds to contact all the record companies involved to get permission to use their product. I guess being in the business for as long as Richie Rich has, you learn a few short cuts and start to get the killer tracks you're after.