RA: RA Poll: Top 10 DJs of 2006 - Feature / Interview 1/17/08 7:00 PM

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RA Poll: Top 10 DJs of 2006 please, we're British
RA Poll: Top 30 tracks of
Who is a great DJ? Simple question, but one which can divide even the best of clubbing friends. We always said we'd 2007
never do a DJ poll after the kerfuffle that always follows you-know-who's results, but for most of us, a great night out RA Poll: Top 10 DJs of
in clubland means being wowed by a great DJ. So here it is. 2007
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So what kind of DJs did we vote for? Obviously, getting around matters. While votes came in for club residents who
2007
week in week out do the business on their local turf (Cassy, Optimo, Slam, Craig Richards), ultimately it's the DJs who
spend their lives hanging out in airport lounges, flying into a city one day and out the next, who made it onto our list. RA Poll: Top 5 live acts of
2007
Size also matters. It's one thing to rock a room full of your mates, but it's another thing to impress a couple of RA Poll: Top 10 albums of
thousand complete strangers, many of whom come with huge expectations, especially after forking out a lot to see 2007
you play. Small parties are great, but when it comes time to vote, it seems the DJs can who wow hordes of us at the RA Poll: Top 10 labels of
big events such as the Winter Music Conference, Sonar, Mutek and Ibiza are who we tip our hats to. Big DJs 2007
nominated included Carl Cox, Adam Beyer, Laurent Garnier, Sven Vath, John Digweed and Desyn Masiello to name
RA Poll: Top 5 remixes of
a few.
2007
There were also plenty of nods to the tastemakers such as Roman Flugel and Luciano, who always seem to have RA Poll: Top 5 producers
record bags filled with vinyl that we've never heard before. Digital download stores and online record stores mean any of 2007
bedroom jock with a credit card can easily get their mitts on a release, but how can they compete with the likes of our RA Poll: Top 10
number one DJ, who has upfront access to almost 200 labels months before they hit the shelves? compilations of 2007
Month to Month:
But it’s not just about who’s biggest or who’s first, it’s ultimately about being able to rock the room. Plenty of votes
Romanian holiday
came in for DJs who managed to please the crowds in 2006: John Tejada picked up more than a few votes from one
big night at Spacelab Yellow, while Ryan Elliott probably jumped up a couple of hundred places by playing a blinder Who is the real Guillaume
at Sonar this year. If you managed to catch M.A.N.D.Y at Kubicle in London, you voted accordingly. Coutu Dumont?
On Chymera
Then came the technical votes. Ableton Live, Final Scratch and all those Pioneer gadgets mean pretty much anyone Club review: Cocoon in
can splice, dice or beatmatch two records together, but many contributors paid respect to DJs like Richie Hawtin, Frankfurt
Magda and James Zabiela, who've managed to find a way of incorporating the new-fangled gizmos to complement, Under the gun: Agoria
and not replace, the music.
Will Saul: A simple plan
There are no DJs from the southern hemisphere. When getting your name out there means clocking up gigs in
hundreds of cities, location is everything. “If you live in the UK or Europe,” Danny Bonnici laments Australian’s
Nubreed. “You’re only two to four hours away from thirty-three countries that you can tour in.” Unsurprisingly, many of
votes were for European DJs: Ivan Smagghe, Ewan Pearson, Damian Lazarus, Tiefschwarz, High Contrast, Steve
Bug, Marc Romboy – the list is a long one.

There are also no fresh-faced kids. You won’t find anyone on our list who still has the receipts for their decks. Votes
came in for old hands Francois K, Andrew Weatherall and Josh Wink, all of whom have put in the hard yards. But's
that not to say we're stuck in the past either – lots of votes for ones-to-watch such as Margaret Dygas, My My, Erol
Alkan and Henrik Schwarz.

Here are the ten DJs that rocked our floors best in 2006.

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RA: RA Poll: Top 10 DJs of 2006 - Feature / Interview 1/17/08 7:00 PM

7. Carl Craig
@ The Garden Party, Ireland: “Finally, Carl Craig took the stage, fading out Humphries
housey-doings into 'Experimento' before going straight into tunnel techno, the looped disco of
Soundstreams' '3rd Movement', Moroder basslines and modulating synths. With the clatter of
hi hats, Craig led into Paperclip People's 'Throw', making the older heads whoop in
recognition, before pulling out of his laptop groove with tinkling jazz-piano keys. With a bow
and a smile, he finished on his remix of Theo Parrish 'Falling Up', showing us why the track
has been turning heads. It was the perfect end to the event. Carl Craig opted for a different
kind of set than what I’d heard from him at Waterford last year. Never one to stay in the
same place musically, tonight he played very avant-garde, very futuristic and very out there.”
– Dave Noonan

6. Sasha
@ Vision, Chicago: “The latter part of Sasha’s set seemed to take on an otherworldly aura.
Different sounds were being sewn into the music with masterful intricacy. Sasha wasn’t
simply mixing records, rather he was bringing records to life through a process of stripping
them down to their bare essentials and then building them back up in a completely different
way. There was a definite minimal aspect to his set, although I would not say that he was
playing minimal techno. He was, simply put, dissecting records and re-attaching the essential
elements together to create his own unique sound. And so, to all those punters out there
who think that mixing with Albeton Live and a MIDI controller is cheating and requires less
skill, think again. Although the traditional aspects such as beat matching have been
eliminated, this new way of DJing opens up a whole new realm of possibilities that requires a
completely different level of skill.” - Enrico Kasjan

5. Ryan Elliott
@ Sonar Festival, Barcelona: “Part of the Ghostly/Spectral showcase at Sonar, Ryan Elliott
humbly let the records speak for themselves and the dancers found their feet. Being a nerd, I
tend to judge DJs on how many what-is-this-record moments they create, and with Elliott I
lost count – he was spinning a kind of techno I now need to know all about: crystallized
synths, a touch of darkness, intelligent yet danceable, graceful yet dirty. An hour of
happiness, and Elliot wrapped up with the riff from Villalobos’ ‘808 the Bassqueen’, a
gracious tip of the hat to the main draw waiting in the wings…” – Jeremy Armitage

4. M.A.N.D.Y
@ Kubicle, London: “By Sunday afternoon we were a man down. Patrick was at the helm,

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Resident Advisor - July 12 2007

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