Amazon MP3 Bargains: The Dance End Of Things.

One of the things I love about Amazon’s new MP3 service (aside from the broad selection, lack of DRM, and easy-to-use interface) is the way they’ve put entire DJ-mixed albums as a single track with the concurrent pricing. I’ve purchased quite a few things I’d either missed out on or just hadn’t bothered finding and ripping from my own collection and thought to myself “You know, I should share these deals with readers, who will then click-to-buy and give me pennies!”

LSG’s Rendevous In Outer Space is a proper trance album from Oliver Lieb, who’s sort of the Alan Moore of crazed, analog-synth obsessed Germans who make electronic music. He’s very clever in his use of melody, frequently burying something and having it emerge slowly over the course of three or four tracks before it explodes.

Peace Division’s Coast2Coast Mix just plain slams. Fantastic dark house records, mixed perfectly.

Markus Schulz: Amsterdam 08 offers melodic, electro-tinged trance and house that may be a bit cheesy sometimes, but I have very few problems with admitting that I enjoy such things on a regular basis, particularly if I’m working and don’t want to think too much.

Nick Warren’s GU30: Paris Mix once again displays his skills at doing more than just putting two records together. The range in these mixes is fantastic: the first part is a bit leftfield and downtempo while still providing enough head-nodding moments to engage you while the second works its way from deep space house to hands-in-the-air ecstasy.

Global Underground: Afterhours 3 is late night work music for hackers and junkies with tracks from The Cinematic Orchestra, Innersphere, Morgan Geist, and Cerrone taking the listener on a strange, beautiful journey into the deeper end of listener-friendly electronic music. It’s one of my favorite headphone albums, as it’s key-mixed as well as beatmatched, creating a great atmosphere for thinkin’ about junk like Batman.