AN ICON OF THE Mix CD DELIVERS A Part-mix, part collage cut-UP OF impossible To define tracks from the 1990’s onwards

Long-standing Australian DJ and producer Mark Dynamix delivers a two-hour migration through the four seasons, starting with a sparse cold winter before moving through the increasing intensities of spring, summer and autumn. Every track has been manually mixed, re-mastered and painstakingly de-clicked from his expansive vinyl archive. Enjoy the ride.

You’ve almost clocked up 35 years behind the decks!  What do you enjoy most about your profession and what’s the most important lesson you’ve learned throughout your career?
Firstly, thanks for having me guest mix, it was a pleasure to do it! 35 years is a long time – what have I learned? Well, there’s naivety and excitement at the start but of course, no structure to anything that was happening. As time goes on, it morphs into growth, exploration and confidence in what you do and put out creatively. Personally, I don’t really remember the DJ, performer or person I was in 1990. So much time has passed and we all change. The only advice I can conjure is to let your creative output be true to who you are; bandwagons don’t last. It’s the ‘long road’ this way and may not lead to instant success by aligning with the ‘heat’, but having listeners recognise your core tastes rather than what’s popular at the time is what builds an audience and creates longevity. Your crew will find you. If your heart and your actions are aimed in the right direction, you will be able experiment across the board and take your audience with you. Variety of genre dependant on mood and taste has always been super important to me.

What aspects of the ‘scene’ have changed for the better and for the worse?
Well, there’s so much change, we’d be here for years! But I’ll mention two things. We all recognise attention spans have been significantly reduced as is the pace of life and technological distractions these days. You can see it in the length of records - gone are 12-minute records like Sasha’s Xpander, now it’s 3-minute ‘extended’ mixes! But also reduced set lengths affect the ability to experiment behind the decks nor give much time to plan a journey. I’m probably just rehashing the obvious here, but phones are a major distraction in a nightclub/festival setting and I’d probably encourage a ban on phone cameras at gigs if it ever came up, just so people can stay tuned in. But I know that’s not popular with everyone.

On a more positive angle, I think as people mature in their later years, along with DJs they have grown with, there’s an unspoken rapport that occurs, which can make performing more enjoyable and quicker to relax into things on-stage. It’s there with bands of course, but all types of performers, especially in their home town. There’s an assurance there that has built up over time. If you’re on the dance floor and are going to give two hours of your life to listen to a particular DJ, trust plays a big part and I understand that.

How did you approach this mix?
Probably differently to most other DJs on the site! I’ve mixed a lot of chill-out mixes over the years for Ministry Of Sound and the ‘90s mixes such as Sundazed, Iced Up and the like. When I was asked to do a chill-out mix of any style, I walked into my record library at home and pulled out a pile of tracks of all eras that I love that I’ve never had the opportunity to showcase. I wanted to put together a mix of all eras; some rarer remixes and unusual tracks, but especially tracks that never made it onto one of those compilations mentioned. There were always some favourites which were too far from the theme of the compilation to be included, or licensing rights didn’t allow at the time. So here they are. These are some of my most endeared tracks on vinyl that I’ve kept all these years in the dub/chillout/ambient space dating from early ‘90s to the late ‘10s.

The next step was to make them all fit together when the tempos range dramatically – but there are some little interludes along the way which allow for a sneaky tempo increase. Every track was sourced from vinyl and mixed live with only a few post-production cuts where I cleaned up the drop mix into a new track at a different speed. Pulling out all the clicks from the vinyl digitally was a major undertaking and I’ve probably still missed a few. I can live with that!

As someone heavily involved in the mix compilation game for Ministry Of Sound back in the day, do you miss the format? Do you feel like we’re devoid of the ‘journey’ or ‘story’ in the current landscape of Boiler Room sets and online mixes?
I probably don’t really need to expand on this too much as you’ve stated my feelings already. As the last hold-out of mix CDs in Australia, I headed up the compilation side of Ministry Of Sound Recordings Australia until putting out the final mix CD in 2019, so I really saw the end of that particular mix format. We finished off the series with some great mixes such as Chillout Sessions 20 and Sessions: Rebirth though. But it’s over now and digital has swamped the market. And it’s a shame. There’s nothing more that can be done about it because the market for physical CD compilations just isn’t there anymore. Plus mixes are available for free now on Mixcloud/Soundcloud and Lazydaze of course. And that’s fine, as the creative aspect of the format is still available if people want to go looking for it.

What is your all-time favourite home listening track, LP and mix compilation?
Haha, impossible! It depends whether I want to lean on a chilled pop/dance angle or more abstract/leftfield. To be truthful I probably listen to a lot more synth based electronica from the earlier decades these days than 90s or 2000s chill, but I regularly throw on a CD in the car such as Conscience by The Beloved, or 100th Window by Massive Attack. My preference has always been for UK music. Of course, I’m biased towards the UK, having grown up with it there.

Whatever happened to the chill out room in clubs and is it due a comeback?
Do people have the patience for them these days? Historically (I’m talking 90s obviously), the chill out room was a space for partygoers - usually on enhancements - to rest up at raves and clubs. People’s attitudes, ability to ‘relax’ and the rise of authoritarianism have completely changed what people feel like they can do publicly, so I don’t think it’s possible anymore. I think chillout still works well in bar spaces and festivals when the option is there. But the idea of bringing back the Punos-beanbag-rave-chillout-area is long gone unfortunately!

What’s on the cards for Mark Dynamix for the remainder of 2024?
I’m looking ahead to a newly-formed relationship with TMRW Agency and a fantastic tour lined up with Ministry Of Sound around the country in late August/early September. I’ll be hosting the Jack The House and Electronique events again shortly. And continuing to tour up and down the east coast from Melbourne to Port Douglas and some off-shore dates soon, which I’m really looking forward to. I’ve moved states three times in the past five years for differing reasons including lockouts, lockdowns and personal reasons, so time has been taken up rebuilding each time and that has taken me out of the studio, which is frustrating. Things are starting to even out now and I’m getting back in a writing and production mindset, so there may be a slew out releases in 2025 if some other disaster doesn’t put the world on notice again! I’m looking forward to catching up with everyone at the upcoming tours. Thanks for the opportunity to do the mix and cheers for asking!

You can check out the full tracklist for Mark’s mix over at SoundCloud.