As we continue to count down the days to the New Year, we can’t help but get a little nostalgic for the year that’s passed. From heavyweight bassbin bangers from all of our favorite old- and new-school artists alike, to a dizzying blur of memories of being down in the trenches with the squad heaving at the rails, 2017 has definitely been one for the record books.
One of our favorite moments of this past year was when Los Angeles’ own Reid Speed and Soothslayer linked up for a special back-to-back session at EDC Las Vegas. The chance pairing seems to have fired up more than just an epic festival set as the pair come back at us with a full-on sizzling mix and short Q&A designed to launch us into 2018.
As Reid Speed tells us, “The opportunity to link up with Soothslayer for EDC sparked a true friendship and a lot of bonding, which is rare for us both as we’re usually surrounded with boys. Since we’re both women who usually play pretty hard and dark, in getting closer we found we both secretly love the super emo songs that hit you right in the feels, and thought it would be awesome to present them together in an ongoing story format.”
“This mix was a project that Reid and I had discussed doing for a while,” Soothslayer continues. “We are both tomboys that love cats, we wear all black and eat ramen about three times a week and most importantly, we live for drum & bass! For me personally, it is very rare to find another bad-ass female that shares all of your same passions and I knew immediately that Reid was someone I would wanted to be great friends with and continue to work with in future!”
The resulting Sad Girls Volume 1 mix that we’re presenting to you below is everything we’ve come to expect from each DJ in solo mode but amplified to an exponential level by the sheer power of collaboration.
“This mix goes straight for the heartstrings,” Reid explains, “saying all the things that often get left unsaid. We don’t wear our hearts on our sleeves, we pour it into the stories we tell through our DJing. This mix revives the lost art of storytelling, and stories of love and loss, but with hope, are one we think everyone can relate to.”
Even with a well-known penchant for playing the heavier side of drum & bass, the pair have never shied away from dipping into all forms of the genre, including the liquid-tinged backbone of the current selection.
Soothslayer’s own memory of how the mix came together reveals insights not only into the collaborative process but the inner workings of the process as a whole: “We were hanging out at my house, mixing as we normally do and somehow one of us dropped a liquid tune and since we like to keep the right vibes together, we just kept dropping liquid tunes. We were getting so excited and immediately decided, we should do this! We should make an all liquid mix where we play all the minor scale, super melodic, liquid that we love so much! We realized that our selections were kicking us both in the gut in the best way and we were loving the way each song made us feel, so we wanted to put a story together and share it with the world!”
The feels are definitely in full effect with this one so check the heavyweight mix below and be sure to let the basslines hit you where it hurts before you ring in the New Year and smash into 2018 with the squad no matter where you find yourself when the clock strikes midnight.
SAD GIRLS VOLUME 1 – TRACKLIST
- Mitekiss ft. Jerome Tomas & Mr Porter “Who’s There”
- Jome “Cinnamon” (Hybrid Minds Remix)
- Krakota ft. Benji Clements “End of the Line”
- Fourward ft. Grimm “Memories of You”
- Alix Perez “Drifting”
- Whiney “Wasting Time”
- Phase & Midnight Request “Those Eyes”
* Excision & Savvy “Sleepless (Loadstar Remix)
- Bcee ft. Lucy Kitchen “Surfacing”
- Netsky “I Refuse”
- Wilkinson ft. Karen Harding “Sweet Lies”
- Intent ft. Avenax “Alone” (Mob Tactics Remix)
- Urban Dawn “Still Breathing”
- Fred V & Grafix “Stay Here”
- Came & Krooked “If I Could”
- Surplus & AudioSketch “Leave It All Behind”
- Loadstar “Stepped Outside”
- Spectrem “Run”
- Air.K & Cephei “Just Because”
- Alex Tweaker “About Us”
- Blue Mar Ten “Half The Sky”
- Alix Perez ft. Even Everett & Spectrasoul “Forsaken” (Calibre Remix)
- Smooth “My Feeling”
- Six Blade & AMC “Strangers”
- Four Tet “Angel Echoes” (Logistics Remix)
- Chords “Love Burning”
- Decimal Bass ft. Benji Clements “Taken It All”
- Edit “The Junction”
- Frankee “Deep Down”
- Air.K & Cephei “Desire” (Break Remix)
- San Holo ft. James Vincent McMorrow “The Future” (Feint Remix)
- Blayze “Lights Are Out”
- Kokiri “Retrospect” (Koven Remix)
- Body & Soul x Fourward “No One Here”
- Mark Knight ft. Skin “Nothing Matters” (Noisia Remix)
- Reid Speed x Jessy Greene “Send & Reply”