With winter on the horizon and the temperature dropping steadily I quickly found myself gobbling up tracks with a more summery feel. Originally, this gave me the urge to simply create a playlist compiling those types of tracks that I most yearned for. This, in itself, was quite the task and I ended up with upwards of 200 tracks, totalling nearly 15 hours of music; a hugely daunting playlist now sat in my library begging to be cut down to an appropriate and manageable size. I then set out to find a more clear sound and theme for this playlist that was quickly becoming more and more important to my daily music consumption, and therefore my happiness quota. I found myself unable to cut the playlist further than to 120 tracks and nearly 9 hours of music; still more than one could possibly jam into a two hour mixtape.
Luckily, I had been inspired by the rapid-fire DJing skills shown off this year's Red Bull Thre3Style DJ World Championships held right here in Toronto. The amazing talent and mixing made me believe that anything was possible in terms of what genres and styles of music could be jam packed into a small span of time (check out my favourite act of the finals
Trentino among
others). Following the inspiration taken from the RB3Style DJ World Championships and armed with the warm feeling from some of my favourite instruments (the steel drum, chimes, bells and so forth), I slowly began creating what is now called the "Summæry Steel Drum Special" invoking both the summer I most desired and the idea of a summary (year in review) mix.
As is the case with a free Soundcloud account, 2 hours is always my target length for a mixtape. As was also the case with RB3Style there were often audio clips strewn together so as to fashion an introduction as well as conclusion, and with all the great clips available from the infamous Rob Ford, mayor of this great city, I would have been remiss were I not to include and take advantage of our most beloved crack-smoker.
