13. Kruder & Dorfmeister

13. Kruder & Dorfmeister 

Note: The only requirement for inclusion on this list is that I had to see the DJ in person at least once. I saw Kruder & Dorfmeister at Coachella in 2001. So that’s out of the way.

The reason they’re on this list, and the reason they should be on everyone’s list, is the DJ Kicks mix album they did for !K7 in 1996. By the time the recorded music industry died in 2009 or whenever mix albums had become a plague on the planet, mostly pretentious and pointless and no longer any guide at all to who was at the head of the DJ class.

But K&D’s DJ Kicks album was different: it arrived at a time when only a handful of DJ mixes had ever reached a broad audience. It was a 70-minute masterclass in a sequencing and mixing records, moving through different tempos and styles – dub, hip hop, drum’n’bass, flamenco! -- with both technical precision and an artful grace that no one had really even attempted at that point and no one has bettered since. It introduced millions of people to a new part of the clubbing universe. And it had an ‘iconic artefact’ vibe that had already become rare, post-vinyl: handsome artwork and charmingly goofy liner notes describing the album’s genesis and production. There might be a couple of other mix albums that were as influential, but this is the only ‘classic’ of the genre.

As luck would have it, they could do it live, too. A huge tent in a California desert is not the place you’d want to listen to DJ Kicks, but 2000 people were packed inside thanks to that very album. K&D navigated the situation perfectly, upping the oomph factor while staying inside that lush deep-green sound that made their name. They were bold with their mixes and surprisingly present as performers, connecting with the crowd and cheering on their favourite records. I never doubted them, of course, but there was something vindicating about that night that made DJ Kicks even more precious afterward.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTcOq2z6WjA