Before we get to the booth, one fact reframes everything: '2021-2026' is the farewell release from positivesource, the Berlin label Philippa Pacho and Blue Hour built mid-pandemic to, in their own words, 'bring people together', now closing as the pair focus on their own imprints, Blue Hour Music and Phorum Records. Its 37 cuts read less like a commemorative compilation and more like a full record bag: sequenced right, there is a whole night in here.
Where to enter, where to push
The warm-up zone lives at 138: BLANKA (ES)'s 'Psycho' in E-flat minor, Alan Backdrop's 'Liaq' and Lady Starlight's 'G 3.1' open the floor without burning it. For the mid-set stretch, the Paul Ritch and KOLO55 block — KOLO55 being Ritch's own alias, per the label — is the engine: five cuts between 145 and 146 BPM that chain together without touching the pitch fader, and two of them, 'Eskisse' and 'Cluster', share G minor, so they practically mix themselves. Peak time sits higher: DJ Ali's 'ItMissed' at 148, Alpha Tracks' 'Treeline' at 152 and, if the night calls for a trance turn, Mikkel Rev's 'Entrance' at 150 or the vertigo of LDS's 't.m. (fm mix)' at 158.
The most valuable pieces for anyone actually DJing, though, are the transition tools:
- Spekki Webu's 'Elevation' and Blue Hour's own 'Flashbacks', both at 112, drop the pulse without emptying the floor.
- Regent's 'Occult' and Vil & CRAVO's 'Ripar' clock 72 BPM, which doubled lands at 144: half-time bridges back into the bulk of the record.
- E-flat minor shows up five times, from 'Euforie' to 'SXTOOL': a harmonic lane for building long stretches without key clashes.
That a label chooses to say goodbye by handing out working tools rather than nostalgia says a lot about how it always understood the job: the floor first, the story after.
Sources: Bandcamp · positivesource