Ana Sia 2012 Mix Series

Ana Sia is goin hard in 2012. She’s just relaunched her website, is helming Frite Nite (putting out tracks by Lazer Sword, Salva, NastyNasty, Distal, Grenier, B.Bravo, EPROM and more) and has just completed a very exciting 4 part mix series.

The first mix, Sparkly Eyes Technique, is a bold and (to me) unexpected move for Ana. I’d always thought of her as a versatile, discriminating purveyor mostly glitchhop and dubstep, but this mix is dominated by muscular house and dark, throbbing techno jams. As with all these mixes, there’s no track list (and it’s not my job to make you one) but I can tell you that Boddika features prominently. It’s a thoroughly warehouse vibe, and shows right off the bat that Ana isn’t interested in the same old, same ole.

Rebound is the second in the series, examining the those primo dubstep vintages in ’05-’09. Every track is a classic – Zombie, The Bug, Mala, etc. This mix will almost certainly mean more to those who felt this music at the time in dark clubs on huge systems, and will feel those goosebumps of nostalgia. But for those who are looking for a dubstep history lesson, you couldn’t find a better place to start (ok, maybe Dubstep Warz). This is the sound of the genre when it was raw and as surprising to the artists as it was to the club-goers. Certainly it’s an ode to a golden era, but it’s by no means a eulogy; it’s a retelling of an origin story – a return to roots and a call to arms.

The third mix, “Hybrid Vigor”, is my favorite of the series, so I want to let Ana explain this one:

I love music that gets caught in-between genres; the unclassifiable, the awkward, the genre of “other”. Hybrid Vigor celebrates these moments of musical purgatory sampling juke, drum&bass, hip-hop, & whatever adjective can be used to decipher the following 45 minutes.

Finally, We-K finished things up by taking us on a tour through the grime-i-verse. Again, her words do it best,

We-K is a salute to a genre that has been mostly uncharted territory in the states to my surprise, but cannot possibly be ignored if you step into the UK, where in my opinion, is where most popular electronic music reaped it’s influences. Grime’s a style that fuses garage/dancehall/hiphop & explores the full range of 140bpm, also serving my love of dubstep & dark riddims & bass