![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1519679245/erkkqzaxktydwryaooqo.png)

There was a milestone last week. I posted my first ever Steemit only review. You may ask what the difference between me writing something like this and a (*huge air quotes*) "review" is. Well. When I slip into review mode for Inverted Audio, it is a huge amount of effort. It isn't uncommon for a release to cause me to slip into a debilitating writers block. The phrases exist in my mind, the music is understood, yet the thought of sitting down at a laptop to commit these thoughts to OneNote results in nothing but revulsion. Music is subjective and trying to communicate something unknown to a reader requires the ability to tap into something emotive.

When I first started out writing, I quickly realised that the criteria of "I'd probably slip this into a DJ set" wasn't really suitable for selecting content. There are only so many times you can summarise a standard dance floor banger before you want to delete your soul. Conversely, writing about something negatively is surprisingly easy and I choose not to do it. There is such a volume of music out there that there is no need to go Simon Cowell on someone's work. Don't mistake this for a lack of critique, I will evaluate the work in front of me and say something that I feel needs to be said. [If you check out my recent review of Ripperton](https://steemit.com/electronicmusic/@fourfourfun/review-ripperton-sight-seeing), you'll note that I found the second to last track to be not quite to my taste. Not enough to take the shine off a glowing collection of ambient works.

Conversely, going into blog mode here, or on my light and breezy summaries I posted over Christmas, is a gear I can slip into easily. It is a little more conversational, if still erring on the side of hours work. Let's just say, when I go into full review mode, I'm really dedicating my time to the cause.

Digression aside, back to my Steemit exclusive. I had a nice comment underneath from @kevinwong:

![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1519676769/sxmsdln8kp3vmpgvue5g.png)

Funny thing about me is that - despite loving techno - my mixes tend to be on the deeper side of things, erring towards the headphone listener rather than the club. In an inspired groove about a year ago, I was 50% of the way through a visceral techno arrangement that I was getting pretty happy with. Then, the lovely that is my youngest son stepped on my MacBook. I'm not going to pretend it was a pristine £2k machine. The battery was over 1,000 cycles and it farted out heat like it was some sort of mining rig. However, it was my hub and his delicate pads cracked the screen from left to right. I threw in the towel at that point and sold it for parts.

![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1519679431/mswd4h87ozhzfqwn7rxp.png)

All of the writing you see right now is done on my work laptop, and this isn't something I can install software on. So no more mixes. 

One of my longstanding aims of Steemit is to be able to fund a Surface Pro (because I can leverage train bound time in a nice form factor) so I can get on the mix again. Before the big laptop death, I had embarked on a series of bite size mixes, 40 minutes in length, designed to be consumable on the commute and not be sessions that I become overly pedantic about in their assembly.  Once I'm up and running again, I'll be mixing again! And the results will be shared here. I'm not quite convinced about whether to use dSound in favour of Soundcloud or not as, ethically, I would be using unlicensed tracks in a for-profit situation. This is a topic for another day and one I'm going to be speaking to a few industry figures about, so keep an eye out.

![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1519678317/pwsvesfbh3ndh58cc2tv.png)

Anyway, one of these mixes from the archive is a techno mix (which I hope you find sick). It is possibly the most direct thing I've done, with the others being angled towards gradient experiences. Skeletal, bare, percussive, and often layered. Here is my mix, all the tracks being culled from my hefty promo stack at the time.

<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/217737429&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true"></iframe>

TRACKLISTING
Nutype - Noisy Ride
1800 Haight Street - LSD Casualty 2
Asusu - Serra
AVION - Ink
Benny Rodriguez - The Choice Is Mine (Rødhåd Remix)
Society Of Silence - Corners
Ø - Internal Conflict (Acts 1 - 3)
JP Enfant - Subconscious Leverage
nthng - 1996
Pearl River Sound - Remember Every Moment

_(last picture is a **very** youthful me)_

![image.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1519679677/eh4xfwzat8op5qbv3huy.png)