I made my first proper DJ mix. It is comprised of the songs that meant the most to me during my two years in Amsterdam.
Over the years I have been quite good at keeping a musical journal. This is a bit more than just a list of my Spotify likes, as they are also the ones which I can in hindsight vividly associate with specific moments and memories. Listening to a even a few of these songs in a row can instantly teleport my mindset back in time. This feeling can be wonderful, but like a normal journal, I found it important to never shy away from including those that took me back to very dark places.
Being able to put such a coherent and concise bow on my Amsterdam music journal is a real achievement I think, and I’m super happy at how it turned out. Aside from the final two songs in the mix (which I believe to be the #2 and #1 best songs of the decade, respectively) the rest are almost intact from the order in which they appeared in my journal. So, you’re getting basically the full story here: joy, isolation, love, heartbreak, revival, and profound gratitude.
The actual playlist is significantly longer than what would fit in a 1 hour mix, and it was a massive challenge picking songs that meshed well both chronologically as well as sonically. For example, it is a travesty that I was unable to include any of El Huervo’s discography here, as Flammarion was the soundtrack to my first northern winter. (There’s always next time, though; The Fire Burns is pretty good too.)
Track list
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ATTLAS - Frost (Early Sketch) (Sam’s Edit)
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Jon Hopkins - Deep in the Glowing Heart
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Sysdemes - Littlest Most
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Uppermost - Heaven
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ATTLAS - Carry It With You
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Hans Zimmer - Arrakis
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LORN - OUT OF THE FRAME
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Daniel Hart - One Year Hence
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Sysdemes - Scatter
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SleepResearch_Facility - 86S115W
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Uppermost, OBu - Ascent
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Indian Wells - Before Life
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Direct, Harvey - I Love You
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Rival Consoles - Untravel
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Alex Banks - Resonate
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Silvana Estrada - La Enfermedad Del Siglo
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Cephas Azariah - Table Cloth
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ATTLAS - Her Archipelago
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Ben Böhmer, Tinlicker - Voodoo
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Sun Lo - Never Learned
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Dauwd - Theory of Colours
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Fred again.., Brian Eno - Secret
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ATTLAS, Jodie Knight - Used to the Silence
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Uppermost - UNIVERSE SHINE BRIGHTER
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Max Cooper - Stereoscopic Dive
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Lane 8, Le Youth, Jyll - I Will Leave A Light On
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Victoria Canal - swan song
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Duskus - Call Me
Misc
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Anybody who’s ever heard an ATTLAS mix will immediately hear his influence here, and I’m wearing that on my sleeve. ATTLAS mixes have been a core part of my musical journey since way before I moved to Europe.
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Incidentally, I was going to call this mix “Canals”, but ATTLAS himself beat me to that title with his excellent January 2025 mixtape.
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The first two spoken word quotes are from Better Call Saul and the final one is from Vanskabte land.
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I bought all of the tracks (except for Frost, which was a demo version, and Her Archipelago, which is only on SoundCloud). My wallet hurts, but I now own an enormous stack of some of my favourite albums. This is a goal I’ve been working towards anyway for a little while; I’ll write about that some day.
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Sadly I bought “Voodoo” in MP3 quality from Beatport, and didn’t want to fork over an additional EUR8 to buy it again but in FLAC. Sorry audiophiles.
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I worked quite hard on a Klur - Floating / Virtual Self - Ghost Voices mashup for this mix, but it ended up not really fitting in anywhere. Next time…