Making a compelling DJ mix isn’t rocket science. Just play a selection of songs no other DJ would come up with, in a way that no other DJ would play them, while finessing the pacing and transitions. Still, hitting all those points is key. Nail the technical bits but flub the selection, and what have you got? A convincing argument in favor of outsourcing your job to a computer. A killer set of songs put together without the DJ’s sleight-of-hand, meanwhile, is just a playlist.
Michael Mayer, however, is a natural. His technique is impeccable, and his personality bursts from the decks. In many ways, he’s his own stiffest competition, because he raised the bar so high, so early in his career. His first mix CD, 1998’s Neuhouse, wasn’t just an introduction to the then-nascent sound of Cologne techno. It was an argument in favor of a different way of imagining dance music: steely yet emotive, minimalist yet expansive, linear but always game for an entertaining detour. Most importantly, it convincingly compressed an entire night’s worth of moods into 73 fleeting minutes, a trick that has become a hallmark of Mayer’s mixes.
With 2002’s Immer, rightly heralded as a techno classic, he pretty much perfected his aesthetic, one he has built upon on subsequent mixes: deft, surprising, and stylish, equal parts trickster and sensitive soul. The conventional wisdom tends to consider Immer Mayer’s masterpiece, and it’s true that it nails an elusive vibe in a way that few mixes can. Still, all of his mixes confirm the originality and restlessness of Mayer’s tastes. There’s Fabric 13’s gonzo, peak-time flair; Immer 2’s insouciant disco edge; and Immer 3’s procession of goth-tinged torch songs.
DJ-Kicks is Mayer’s first commercially released mix since 2010’s Immer 3. Dance music has changed a lot since then: Mix CDs don’t enjoy the same status they once did, largely having been replaced by SoundCloud, and Mayer’s brand of controlled eclecticism has become more common. Techno fans are far less suspicious of melody, and of pleasure, than they once were. (It’s strange to think how audacious it felt for him to drop Westbam and Nena’s piano-house anthem “Oldschool, Baby” on 2003’s Fabric 13; that kind of winking rave nostalgia is everywhere these days.) But the new set is clearly cut from the same cloth as its predecessors. It is quiet in places and raucous in others; its selections are sometimes intuitive and sometimes wildly idiosyncratic, but its forward motion is always fluid. Leaning mostly on fairly obscure house tracks from the last several years, it also reaches back and gathers up some real oddities—a Marc Almond feature remixed to hi-NRG heaven by Röyskopp; a 2004 remix by Basement Jaxx’s Simon Ratcliffe of Throbbing Gristle’s 1979 song “Hot on the Heels of Love”—to carve out a unique corner of the dancefloor.
As always, he begins with a rapturous soft launch: an ambient sketch for trombone and Rhodes keyboard by Peter Zummo, a onetime collaborator of Arthur Russell, followed by Mayer’s dreamy “The Horn Conspiracy,” which teases pitter-pat congas out of a fog of muted horns and reverb. He builds on the creeping drama with Bvoice, Anrilov, and Danilov’s “Papa’s Groove (dOP & Masomenos Remix),” a Franco-Russian affair full of brushed percussion, Ethio-jazz-inspired flute, and a murky, Russian-language monologue. Mutado Pintado’s spoken-word vocals in SAVE!’s “The Darkness (I:Cube Remix)” create a sort of subliminal through-line into the next section of the mix, a four-track segment of vaguely new wave-ish flavors. This is probably the set’s most inspired passage. SAVE!’s phased and flanged guitar lead gives way to the slide guitar of Justus Köhncke’s cover of Michael Rother’s “Feuerland”; CSS’s electroclashy “Honey (Michael Mayer Remix)” and Alter Ego’s Gary Numan tribute “Gary” round out what amounts to a treatise on the enduring power of the 1980s.
One of Mayer’s specialties is the transition that is both seamless and abrupt—that is, a dramatic change in mood where the groove barely flinches—and he uses that trick several times, to brilliant effect. The segue into his ’80s-inspired mini-mix is as clean as the twist in a Möbius strip, and following “Gary,” the energy imperceptibly shifts once again. This time it plunges us into a long passage of peak-time disco: soaring voices and synths, chugging arpeggios, synthesized Philly strings. A Prins Thomas remix of Lionheart Brothers’ “The Drift” wrenches an eight-minute crescendo out of the set’s throbbing midsection; Röyksopp’s gooey mix of Mekon’s “Please Stay,” featuring a heavily vocoded Marc Almond, is as unabashedly excessive as any record that ever graced Mayer’s platters.
After that giddy peak, the comedown, and we’re back on familiar, wistful terrain. Chris & Cosey’s remix of Death in Vegas’ “Consequences of Love” applies a bright streak of melody late in the set. After the ambient false ending of Idioma’s “Landscapes,” Moderat’s remix of Jon Hopkins’ “Abandon Window” surges to a heart-in-mouth climax and rapid denouement, setting us gently down like a mother bird depositing her chick in the nest.
It’s a euphoric listen, and for a while there, an exhausting one. The opening third might make for a wonderful breakfast companion, but by the time he hits that Prins Thomas space elevator, you may wish you hadn’t had a second cup of coffee. It’s true that the set’s ambitious scope reflects the way Mayer’s style of playing has evolved in the seven years since his last mix CD. In 2012 and 2013, touring Mantasy, he played 20 all-nighters in his favorite clubs around the world, often playing for eight or 10 hours at a stretch, and even now, it’s rare that he’ll play fewer than three hours. At this month’s 4GB festival in Tbilisi, Georgia, he put in an incredible 17-and-a-half hours behind the decks. That sounds insane, but Mayer’s wide-ranging tastes and narrative sensibility really require a wide canvas to thrive (clearly lots of energy drinks, too). On DJ-Kicks, attempting to squeeze all those peaks and valleys into the length of a single aluminum disc, he finally runs up against the limits of the form. Should the medium survive long enough for Mayer to turn in another commercial mix—would Immer 4 be too much to ask for?—the solution is simple: Stretch out to two or even three CDs. If any DJ can hold our attention that long, he can.
