Best Current DJ

oops i forgot Move D

The list is missing many (obviously) but includes many of my favourites. Can't really decide between Cassy & Zip who I've seen live multiple times and they've always been great. Both Ben UFO and Villalobos have been great and not so great when I seen them. Raresh went through a stage of being quite over-rated and not that good but I haven't seen him in a couple of years. Far too many of these I have mixes from and love but have never seen live, which is kind of necessary.

Dan Bell

x post. Is the list from another source or just favorites?

No source just people good right now...a couple in there may have slipped thru on past reputation tho

Actually, if we're talking right now, I'd say Scuba, but he's not on here, so my vote is still Dan Bell.

on a purely technical level i think ben ufo destroys everyone else on the list

as far as selection goes i happen to subjectively prefer his

Ben UFO does have the ability to play different tempo and moods between and within sets. I highly rate him. I don't feel qualified to vote as I've only seen about 10 of the list in a club setting.

i don't want to be the endless voice of negativity on these threads but ... this is another list that is heavily skewed toward the list-makers taste. afaict there are a lot of undistinguished deep house / tech house / post-minimal house names on this list and i wonder how and why anybody would consider them in the running for best DJ

Jan Krueger
Vera Heindel
Binh
Fred P
Julietta
Raresh
Julius Steinhoff
Daniel Bell
Zip
Eli Verveine
Praslea
Alexandra
Nicolas Lutz
Kai Alce
Tulbure
Kozo
Prosumer
Jane Fitz
Sonja Moonear
Red D
Rhadoo
Lawrence
Rozzo
Aybee
Laetitia Katapult
Ron Trent
Cabanne
Lerosa
Hakim Murphy
Anthony 'shake' Shakir
Steven Tang
Baby Ford
Anton Zap
Kerri Chandler
Priku
Juniper
Petre Inspirescu

^^ like i really don't get how these names got on this list

lol @ this list

don't get me wrong i am sure all of these people are competent DJs and there are quite a few killer producers on this list

but the idea that these guys are in the same echelon as dudes like klock and dettmann and prosumer and cassy who have basically built the reputation of what is generally agreed on as europe's best club or like theo parrish and ben ufo who have basically invented their own style of DJing that a million people are trying to copy

Binh
Julietta
Julius Steinhoff
Eli Verveine
Praslea
Alexandra
Nicolas Lutz
Tulbure
Kozo
Red D
Laetitia Katapult
Priku
Juniper

^^ pretty sure i'm not the only person who's wondering who the hell these people even are

This list is fairly evenly spread between people I've never heard of, people I've never heard a mix/set by and people I find a bit dull so I'm voting for Ben Klock. FWIW my vote is essentially worthless.

I think many of these are based in DE and make infrequent trips outside of Berlin / mainland europe. There are also quite a few Romanians on the list!! I'd like to see Julietta play on the basis of a couple of mixes though.

also - what have you got against Donato Dozzy??

lol @ this list

^^ pretty sure i'm not the only person who's wondering who the hell these people even are

haha i initially assumed they were made-up in some kind of zingy comment on sick mouthy's lists but it appears not!

(well, "alexandra", who even knows)

(voted steffi fwiw)

doing a party with steffi in a couple of weeks. fwiw
http://www.residentadvisor.net/event.aspx?345533

Nice line up but TBA E London kind of puts me off. Is this your night straightola?

scuba i think is a digital DJ, which is okay w/ me because so am i, and i'm impressed w/ how he regularly manages to get 50 tracks into 90 minutes, but at the same time i think the digital thing kind of knocks him out of the running for "best DJ"

klock, dettmann, steffi, cassy, prosumer, etc (and i guess by extension the whole underground quality crew) are obviously legendary but at the same time playing 9 hour sets of straight-ahead four-to-the-floor techno and house and letting tracks play out for 10 minutes or whatever doesn't seem quite as challenging as what a lot of "urban-influenced" DJs do

ben UFO though is doing something that a lot of people have assumed for a long time to be impossible ("serious" techno/house w/ heavily swung urban stuff like ukg, post-dubstep, dubstep, grime, etc) AND doing it 100% w/ vinyl AND doing it w/ tons of energy and excitement and dj tricks and whatnot

someone i would nominate for best DJ would be RRRRRRRRRUSTIE

http://boilerroom.tv/rustie-50-min-mix/

lol @ this list

― Lamp, Wednesday, April 18, 2012 9:37 AM Bookmark

poll nadir.

i was going to put you on!

then i'd have had to shoot myself. :)

scuba i think is a digital DJ, which is okay w/ me because so am i, and i'm impressed w/ how he regularly manages to get 50 tracks into 90 minutes, but at the same time i think the digital thing kind of knocks him out of the running for "best DJ"

ben UFO is... doing it 100% w/ vinyl

Pedantic corrections: have you seen scuba DJ live, though? The man can work a pair of CDJ's to. the. bone. The speed, reflexes, and utter precision (not to mention consistency) of his mixing is incredible.

The two times I saw ben UFO play he was using serato. Not that that changes anything, he's still amazing, and I might just pick up his Rinse CD sometime soon.

Another mention in a similar note, is that, seeing Jackmaster play a week and a half ago was one of the most fun sets I've experienced.

No offensive, but I don't see how anyone could have thought yet another of these polls was a good idea after the resounding success of all the other recent electronic ones.

No offence don't know anything about any other polls

No offence taken, i mean

Lol@everyone taking this seriously.

But also surprised late great surprised at zip being on the list

i'd vote for zip.

anyway, sorry coal but it just seems like such an arbitrary, random list. and what does "current" mean? several of these have been doing it or 20 - 25 years. i'm probably taking it too seriously but always find dj polls weird.

think this was specifically meant to be a joke

tho can't be sure

Current as in seen them play lately...put a few residents type DJs in there for that reason

"seen them play lately" = ok. does compute.

this is another list that is heavily skewed toward the list-makers taste. afaict there are a lot of undistinguished deep house / tech house / post-minimal house names on this list

^^^
this. A very narrow definition of "dj" here based on certain related genres (but no mentions of the genres in the title)

didn't zip do the first superlongevity?

iirc i saw him at a perlon thing in san diego (!) but he skewed to local taste and played kinda boring west coast tribal deepish tech-house

maybe it was another perlon dude tho

i think we got most everyone important though

yo wait we forgettin someone real important? you know who we forgettin man?

Rheji BurRELL

Rheji, my brother!

lol i have heard of 3 people on this poll

scuba i think is a digital DJ, which is okay w/ me because so am i, and i'm impressed w/ how he regularly manages to get 50 tracks into 90 minutes, but at the same time i think the digital thing kind of knocks him out of the running for "best DJ"

i don't really care about scuba but this is also hilarious, GIMME MORE

k but first tell me why so i can keep bringing the lulz

seriously carrying the distinction between digital or not as a most important factor in one's quality in 2012 is deserving of some animated gif tumblr post

seriously carrying the distinction between digital or not as a most important factor in one's quality in 2012 is deserving of some animated gif tumblr post

most every dj on this list will play a high percentage of music that has no digital release

i think coal just proved my point

really? so in a "best photographer" poll you wouldn't see a distinction between digital cam + photoshop vs film?

take it to ILP

k brb

I really like Ben UFO but thought his Rinse CD was pretty much just okay to quite good. ""serious" techno/house w/ heavily swung urban stuff like ukg, post-dubstep, dubstep, grime, etc" is a great concept but the results can seem a lot less startling than you'd think.

Though speaking of which where is Surgeon on this list.

If you want to account for these differences then do not call this "best current dj" . How about "Best current tech house/minimal non-digital dj".

fwiw i agree his rinse mix was not quite thee best representation of his talents and btw it is quite strange how almost every rinse mix has been underwhelming given the quality of the DJs they pick (well excepting like n-type)

though it also took me many listens to really get into it

a high percentage of music that has no digital release

loads of djs buy vinyl specifically to digitise it.

i've found that a lot of "official" cd mixes have been underwhelming, especially in comparison with what those DJs actually play out

levon vincent's new fabric mix is an honourable exception but that's in large part b/c he did a ricardo/omar-s and made it largely about his own stuff

i've found that a lot of "official" cd mixes have been underwhelming, especially in comparison with what those DJs actually play out

^ this all day long

licensing issues maybe?

The more hyphens on this thread, the more interesting the discussion.

maybe partly that, maybe partly because the djs seem to try to compress everything they're about into too short a time when they're handed the reins of these projects, and partly because too many of them have a weakness for thom fucking yorke

there are so many unlicensed mixes that the ones that filter to the top are always going to be great. it's an unlimited testing ground. i can only imagine that licensing issues must be huge though given what must be a miniscule buying audience for licensed mixes.

first sentence sounds a bit optimistic, but basically mean the djs get as many goes as they want with unlicensed mixes, it only takes one good one.

excellent point

but what are you getting at re: hyphens??

also lex sadly otm re: thom fucking yorke, esp wrt "idioteque"

fucking "idioteque", ugh

it's kind of sad in a way cuz there have been so many classic licensed mix CDs but kind of not now that we're unbelievably spoiled with the amount of free mixes available

i guess enough of a market for them is still there that fabric, djkicks, berghain et al haven't just wrapped up their CD series

hyphens

just i find post-adjective-genre really grim.

eh come on more complaining about dance genre names?

Sonny D. Moore

there is a certain context in which the genre names vying against each other is just like the disintegration of discussion.

which i'm prob way too circumspect about, but still

is it brostep?

i've got not problem with post-isms but what's an example of post-minimal out of curiosity

soundstream, efdemin, etc

pantha du prince, steffi, art dept, etc

Basically any deep house-ish stuff made by people who would have been making minimal back in 2005/2006.

In typical fashion it now seems that post-minimal's moment has stretched a fair amount longer than that of minimal itself.

tim seems to grok

what people call post-minimal prob existed before or certainly during minimal. here we go...

Sure, but what people call post-dubstep also existed before or certainly during dubstep - if you take any "post-" genre this is basically the case.

One can nitpick these things and act SHOCKED that not all music lines up into a neat chronological series of genre developments, but... do we really have to go through that moment of revelation in 2012?

Surgeon, Donato Dozzy, 2562/A Made Up Sound, Intergalactic Gary... So many other great DJs not on this poll.

Dan Bell would be my choice out of those listed.

i'm not really nitpicking, more that i just have a problem with this idea of minimal as some distinct thing, it never was until it became a derogatory term and everyone at that point just meant m_nus. all this has been hashed out before though.

xpost

This is when I first started to think of "minimal" as a thing:

http://s.dsimg.com/image/R-150-522798-1128092859.jpeg

Loco Dice was probably also the first "star of minimal" in the sense of having zero rep beforehand and basically having his colours tied to the mast, as it were.

Also that's a pretty great mix though not as good as Andre Galuzzi's similar Berghain 01.

ben UFO though is doing something that a lot of people have assumed for a long time to be impossible ("serious" techno/house w/ heavily swung urban stuff like ukg, post-dubstep, dubstep, grime, etc) AND doing it 100% w/ vinyl AND doing it w/ tons of energy and excitement and dj tricks and whatnot

ty for posting this the day before Ben UFO plays here

Aren't all Loco Dice tracks ghost written by Martiin? Either way I can't stand that sound.

Er, Martin Buttrich.

I was referring to the DJ mix not his tracks (though there were a couple of great Loco Dice tracks).

OK, but I can't stand the whole "sunglasses" sound to be honest. Around 2005/2006 was the first time I realised some minimal house was getting very different from the stuff I was digging.

yeah it became about how you looked rather than what the music was. eg if you wore sunglasses you were obviously a moron incapable of liking good music.

Loco Dice put out 2 12"s around 2005/2006 on Ovum which were pretty classic. Would be prob filed under deep house currently. Both Buttrich productions. Having seen him play a few times I'd say he pretty competent but no surprises. Tim F is right he really was a star of 'minimal' which he achieved by doing both the Ibiza DC10 thing, the Germany/Berlin thing and linking up with big labels of the time; Cadenza and M_nus. He wore sunglasses a lot at had the right 'look', i.e. not a pasty looking european.

i've heard of about 3 of these...

some really unfamiliar names there. vera heindel (is this the dj known as vera?), binh, praslea, alexandra, tulbure, kozo, sonja moonear, laetitia katapult, priku, juniper.

I voted for prosumer. He's not the best technically but damn he's a great digger. Also feel that they should've been nominated: nina kraviz, todd terje, john osborn, prins thomas, serge, steffi, tama sumo.

vera heindel is that vera...binh is resident at club der visionaere

prob put a few too many of the romanians in
i forgot prins thomas (and move d), both should have been in
steffi was nominated (tho her recent sets not been that great)

I admit I've only seen Steffi in Youtube clips though, haha. She looks so cool and charismatic. Selections are ace, too.

didn't really want to do this thread based too much on having actually seen play out as its not up to me how a person makes a choice if people want to base it on mix podcasts or whatever thats totally fine....but on the other hand...

i dont vote in polls because they're kind of dumb but if i did, based on recent sets would prob go for either zip or any of the rpr soundsystem

why is zip underrated? clips of him blew me away.

Zip is like a DJs DJ. He's very very good but not in the premier league of crowd pulling DJs. He hasn't got the profile of Jamie Jones, Seth Troxler, Ricardo etc.. He doesn't exactly have a busy release schedule of his own music either which DJs do to get up the ladder.

recommend me a good zip mix

lol i dunno any good zip mixes online like with most of these its more from hearing them out

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

out of these going to go with ricardo, had too many best nights ever seeing him. one time around 2003/4 he played mint club in leeds and the night went from people not really getting (into) it to applauding every new track. when the lights came on everyone was gushing over what they'd just heard and it was 7 in the morning and even though the drugs were wearing off the buzz from everyone around was enough to ward off a comedown. t'was a good night out dancing and i'm guessing ricardo made his name by doing nights like that and converting a room full of people to his sound

surgeon has been on fire recently, but that style of techno doesn't seem to get covered much on ILM. also ha, glad other people on ILM like intergalactic gary :D

i'd have a real tough time telling mixes by a lot of these people apart but out of that list i wouldn't mind popping out to see any of the following play

Daniel Bell
Zip
Ben ufo
Theo Parrish
Ben Klock
Prosumer
Ricardo Villalobos
Marcel Dettmann
Lawrence
Ron Trent
Anton Zap
Jus-ed
Kerri Chandler

predictably ILMish cuz i guess that's where i heard about most of them in the first place

the night went from people not really getting (into) it to applauding every new track
drugs

any correlation?

haha weird list. voted dettmann

Exclusion of both Dozzy and Move D a bit of a clanger so I'll go with the lovely Steffi.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

ben ufo was robbed

maybe i don't listen to enough uk bass/whatever music to hear it, but what's so good about this ben ufo fella? saw him at corsica a few months ago, and eh, it was alright, nothing magical, just sounded like rinse usually sounds. i guess i'm not really a fan of that quick cut pre-programmed dj-ing style, it's a bit too invasive add for my tastes

theo is a treat, long long sets, super loud, loads of unreleased edits, shoddy mixing, heavy heavy heavy, full of surprises, he played some chris and cosey one time when i saw him!

the one time i saw theo parrish he was EQ'ing everything in this really exaggerated way that was totally stupid, it seemed like he was making fun of the people he was playing for. people wanted to get into it but it sounded like total shit. it was at some event with a bunch of different DJs and it kind of sucked, so he might've just been annoyed with the whole thing.

kinda surprised at theo winning - had partially wanted people to say when voting how many of these they'd seen play out in the last idk 2 years?

Seen 10 play out in the last 2 or 3 years. Only 3 of them more than once. Voted Cassy over Zip in the end.

i think seen 22 in that time frame - didn't vote though

Was there a reason for your abstention? Do you have any preferences over the 22?

never really got into listening to any of ufo, but now that i've looked around via this thread he's pretty great

maybe i don't listen to enough uk bass/whatever music to hear it, but what's so good about this ben ufo fella? saw him at corsica a few months ago, and eh, it was alright, nothing magical, just sounded like rinse usually sounds. i guess i'm not really a fan of that quick cut pre-programmed dj-ing style, it's a bit too invasive add for my tastes

i dunno, none of these insults about him + rinse really seem to apply here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qkXGWyteWA

also: villalobos, lol

Was there a reason for your abstention? Do you have any preferences over the 22?

― mmmm, Thursday, 26 April 2012 15:23

i never vote in polls

you just make them and force these poor people to pick from your arbitrary list you twisted fuck

you know, i think the "you can only judge them if you've seen them live" thing is a canard

ime as much as there's sometimes something "special" about seeing a DJ live that you don't get from a recording, there's also a lot of subjective factors that can distract or interfere with your enjoyment - how the crowd is acting, whether you have a headache, how many drugs you took, etc.

is jeff mills a good DJ? yeah. i've heard a lot of jeff mills live sets that confirm that as well as videos and video streams from clubs and other settings. the one time i saw jeff mills i had an awful time. they gave him a 3 am slot, after a few hours of deeply underwhelming prog/electrohouse. the crowd was an odd mix of hollywood / santa monica douchebags & douchebitches as well as a big contingent of extremely cracked-out looking vietnamese and korean people in their late 30s and 40s. the sound was off, the space was uncomfortable and had a boomy room echo, many people were jostling to take cellphone photos, mills was pissed because the decks were a millimetre off from where he wanted them (and he had them replace all three needles as well as his headphones) and trying to dance while sober to his music after three hours of dancing to west coast tribal deep house in a different room was punishing, to say the least

i've never seen ben ufo live, because i don't think he's ever done a show in america. i've seen him "live" on upstream videocasts and listened to many livesets and podcasts on the internet. he DJs in a way that's technically impressive and that pushes the boundaries of my thinking about dance music. theo parrish has done the same, and even though i find theo's thing is a little more tiring and a little less impressive, he's managed to do the same.

yep - is why i didn't explicitly say about having seen them - really it was more about who you would like to see this weekend - wherever you might live or go would have a bearing on the outcome

also, the outcome doesn't matter

show me one of these boundry pushing ben ufo mixes, i'm really up for being converted, especially now the sun's coming out. and i wasn't dissing rinse or ufo upthread? just isn't too much to my tastes atm. i haven't heard anything from him that's jumped out and made me go woah and the times i've seen him i've been underwhelmed.

on that youtube upthead he cuts tracks out all over the place, sends a text, people are just standing around gawping at him. it's clinical and controlled and little bit boring, i'd find it hard to lose my shit and get into the music if i was there and that's his job, to aid that whole process

interesting about seeing djs live vs just listening to mixes. i'll judge a dj on where they play and with who they play, on what soundsystem as much as what they play and how they play it. also rarely get the time to listen to a 3hr dj mix so i tend to judge people mostly on seeing them out.

i mean he may not just be to your taste, i really like all of the boiler room mixes, podcasts, rinse mix CDs, etc. but i know some ilxors whose taste i respect don't find him nearly as impressive as i do (tim finney comes to mind) ... as far as people standing around gawping isn't that like the front row of every "big dj" set ever?

ben (like zip actually) is pretty adaptable to different scenario's imo and can take in whatever direction

I like the UFO, he's a great digger who also picks up on some big tunes early on and he usuually keeps the transitions interesting - that clip up there seems like a typical after-party-style eclectic set though. There was a great UFO/Jackmaster B2B on Rinse a few months ago, but again it's a radio show rather than a club set.

Here's the link, but I think it's drop offline: http://podcast.dgen.net/rinsefm/podcast/BenUFO160212.mp3

I can stick it up somewhere in case anyone's interested.

sure

Actually I really like Ben UFO, vahid, I just thought the Rinse mix was just okay.

My favourite Ben UFO sets I've heard were from 2008/2009, which may reflect the fact that this was when his style seemed most new and exciting.

When I get home I'll see which ones I like most and maybe even upload them.

I doubt the problem is that he's gotten worse since then - maybe he's even gotten better - but his style has since become one vein of post-dubstep orthodoxy, which makes it a lot harder for it to strike me as exciting (in the same way that nu-deep post-minimal DJ sets became radically less exciting circa 2008 even though there wasn't necessarily any drop in quality from the best DJs).

Ah yeah that's right, Ben UFO Hessle Audio Fabric Takeover mix (from 2009) is the one:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/n4xhiq

I'd concede his style has gotten more wide-ranging since then (here's it kind of consistently a technoid broken beat) but I just love basically every tune on this (and props for including Aphrodisiax's "Unfinished Business"!).

have you heard the pearson sound mix from the same night? so great!

oh wait i see it's fabric, not boiler room, forget it

I've decided that Hessle Audio Fabric Takeovers are one of the few reasons life is worth living.

Ricardo Villalobos turns up at gigs in a canoe

Does Theo's heavy EQ-ing really work in live settings? Because from some video clips and recorded sets I sometimes feel it is a bit excessive and disrupts my enjoyment of the tracks.

in the live setting that i saw him in it certainly did not work at all, it seemed like a joke.

seeing as this is the only thread with Alexandra on it, anyone know what this track that she and Miss I are playing in their b2b set at sunwaves?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EwMNf6RRE4

nice, can't name it tho.

new mix from Vera on Clubberia;
http://www.clubberia.com/music/podcasts/128-CB128-Vera/

someone srsly needs to id that track.

Problem is a lot of the stuff those guys play never gets a release

the new ben ufo LWE podcast is all-time

new? you mean the one from march?

yep

I saw Jubilee last week and she was amazing. Trina, snap mini-set(!), vogue, MORE TRINA, dancehall, "Club Rez". Talked to her for a min afterward and she said she was playing for me. <3

not really sure about judging a DJ from a short recorded mix (especially if you like djs that play long records and let things breathe rather than a more jumpcut style) but this binh mix is pretty much what i want to hear when out

http://soundcloud.com/nightclubber-ro/binh-holy-sunday-at-club-der

Heard Intergalactic Gary play a excellent 4 hour set last night, which I think was recorded too. I will try and remember to post it on here if it comes online.

In the meantime, my favourite new (to me) DJ is Semantica label head Svreca: https://soundcloud.com/arma17/svreca-aux

Get involved! http://www.slabsofthetabernacle.com/2013/03/18/slabs-174-intergalactic-gary-live-the-star-shadow-160313

this bump goes out to the dudes who rock tuesday nights at johnny's on second in salt lake city.

Actually I really like Ben UFO, vahid, I just thought the Rinse mix was just okay.

My favourite Ben UFO sets I've heard were from 2008/2009, which may reflect the fact that this was when his style seemed most new and exciting.

When I get home I'll see which ones I like most and maybe even upload them.

I doubt the problem is that he's gotten worse since then - maybe he's even gotten better - but his style has since become one vein of post-dubstep orthodoxy, which makes it a lot harder for it to strike me as exciting (in the same way that nu-deep post-minimal DJ sets became radically less exciting circa 2008 even though there wasn't necessarily any drop in quality from the best DJs).

― Tim F, Thursday, April 26, 2012 11:23 PM (twelve years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Ah yeah that's right, Ben UFO Hessle Audio Fabric Takeover mix (from 2009) is the one:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/n4xhiq

I'd concede his style has gotten more wide-ranging since then (here's it kind of consistently a technoid broken beat) but I just love basically every tune on this (and props for including Aphrodisiax's "Unfinished Business"!).

― Tim F, Friday, April 27, 2012 11:19 PM (twelve years ago) bookmarkflaglink

This mix still absolutely KILLS btw

Ben UFO b2b Call Super is one of my favourite Boiler Rooms ever and there's plenty of good and even great BUfo sets to be found online. But when I saw him a few years ago it was really boring and he didn't win the crowd over at all.

Steffi b2b Virginia is top of my "must see if I ever get the chance" list, any time I hear a mix on SoundCloud etc by them I'm always blown away

Any S x V sets you particular recommend?

https://soundcloud.com/block9official/steffi-virgina-genosys-session-berlin-2021

BABY FORD WAS ROBBED!

sorry i hid polls in 2012.

i have no idea what baby ford was doing in 2012.

https://soundcloud.com/block9official/steffi-virgina-genosys-session-berlin-2021

― boxedjoy, Thursday, July 25, 2024 8:07 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

This was really good, thank u!

https://soundcloud.com/dkmntl/steffi-at-dekmantel-ten

this is also very good!

"fumiya tanaka" - Phrase not found

this also needs rectifying:

https://soundcloud.com/dimensionsfestival/fumiya-tanaka-live-from-dimensions-23

(This is proper saer music)