Derrick May – Mix-Up Vol. 5

Listening to this again , i start to appreciate Derrick May mixing skills on this session . Yes , start and stop with some pitch down and up but overall tight solid mixing with some vinyl tricks . The song selection are timeless . The artwork itself is great .

The first track is like a mashup of Tyree Cooper - T.C.X. and Fruit Loops - The Message (which is itself a kind of mashup of Chic's "Dance Dance Dance" and MFSB's "Love is the Message")?

The whole Story of Detroit Techno & Chicago House on this time! Genious Mixing, blending, cutting and fading! Its also the Mix of my teenager times, hearing it hundreds of time. I Love it, thats clear!!!

It looks like I already commented on this like 13 years ago! But I just heard a track from this and thought of it, and was reading the comments here, and want to say more.

This mix is basically about the superb tracks, and especially because many of these tracks were new to us youngins when this mix came out, not to mention impossible to find on vinyl. There is some IMO unnecessary trickery thrown in here, some post-production, but I think the idea was to recreate the magic of a top-form live Derrick May DJ set, which you can hardly do better than.

The only part of the mix that truly stands up to the test of time for me is the last part of it, from Freaks to the end. If you're looking for a better feel for a live Derrick set, listen to the 1990 Bristol set that's been floating around for years. Liaisons Dangereuses, Pete Shelley, St. Etienne, LFO, Suburban Knight, Juan Atkins etc. all in a seamless, high energy mix without the gimmicks.

This is a lesson in djing. Recorded live with decks and effects the old fashioned way. The stuff Mr. May pulls out of turntables, a mixer, loops and effects, long before these goodies were built-in your Pioneer DJM-x00, is just insane.

It stands as an historical lesson of how and what DJing is and must be.
A landmark of DJ culture and Detroit Techno.
This is a "Music Institute Mix".

I was a raver at 18 in 1997 and worked at a music store when I bought this CD and it changed my mind about how and what electronic dance music DJing is.

It gave me a soul.

It must do the same to you.

Regarded as one of the best mixes ever with house/techno by those who know, regardless of what other reviews are on here. DETROIT STRONG.

First track uses Tyree Cooper's song "T.C.X."

posted this on "the mayday mix" page, didnt realize they aint all linked:

there is a version of this mix floating around that is 41 minutes longer than the released one..... it seems to me like the longer one is the one that Kenny Larkin edited down. i listened to them both next to each other to compare, and they end and begin with the same tracks; there is just a good amount Larkin cut out (or so we have been told). anyway, i dont think this mix is completely tepid, but honestly getting any shit quality Mayday live @ The Music Institute set or really any of his sets from the 90s (and probably still, as hes been great everytime ive seen him the last few years) is a more pleasurable experience.

there is a version of this mix floating around that is 41 minutes longer than the released one..... it seems to me like the longer one is the one that Kenny Larkin edited down. i listened to them both next to each other to compare, and they end and begin with the same tracks; there is just a good amount Larkin cut out (or so we have been told). anyway, i dont think this mix is completely tepid, but honestly getting any shit quality Mayday live @ The Music Institute set or really any of his sets from the 90s (and probably still, as hes been great everytime ive seen him the last few years) is a more pleasurable experience.

Looking back over fifteen years of listening to mix CDs this is still one of my all time favourites. Cutting my mix CD teeth on the seamlessly mixed Global Underground series of the late 1990s and early 2000s, hearing this and the Jeff Mills "Liquid Rooms" mix for the first time ten years ago was at the same time mind blowing and a shock to the system when I was used to the digitally edited (although not all of them) GU series.

The mix starts out house-ey before moving into more banging territory with the relentless looping of Paul Johnson's "Suntin Suntin", dont even ask me what May does to Green Velvet's "Preacher Man" but it makes the original seem quite sedate. The mix gets quite deep and driving including three Jeff Mills in short succession before banging it out again. The mix closes with a slamming mix into a very Latin track from Basement Jaxx and the deepness of the Kenny Larkin remix of Pullen's Silent Phase project which leaves the listener longing for more.

In a world saturated with mix cds with most big name DJs and clubs having multiple forgettable mix CDs under thier belt, mostly in the name of milking the market, its difficult to believe Techno's finest has only put out one proper mix CD in 30 years of DJing. The mixing, as you would expect from May is fast, high paced, 'warts and all' but the programming is near flawless. With the exception of Transmat/ Fragile's prolific 1987-1993 period, The Mayday Mix represents May at the height of his considerable DJ powers.

In an age when the ownership of a laptop, some hacked "DJing" software or a USB stick entitles anyone to identify themselves as a DJ, The Mayday Mix leaves you lamenting for a time when DJ meant Disk Jockey.