by JAY WATTS III

A couple of mix-sites have held my attention for the past year. Deftly curated and always fresh, they anticipate much of what trickles down to college radio, house parties and, somehow, a 16-year-old stepsister’s iPod.

Tim Sweeney is the blessed 24-year-old Manhattan golden boy—a music supervisor for Rockstar Games, he also does post-production work with New York’s DFA label (he’s responsible for the mix CD that accompanies their second compilation) and hosts the Beats in Space radio show, as well as maintaining a hectic schedule as a globetrotting DJ (some of you might have caught him here this past February with the Juan Maclean).

The show’s broadcast by WNYU in New York, but thankfully, Tim maintains his Web site (http://beatsinspace.net), archiving the show in both high-quality MP3 format and Real Audio. Recent guests have included James Murphy, DJ Language, JG Wilkes of Optimo and Carl Craig, which should give one a general idea of the liquid-funk, avant-house, leftfield disco-isms and other rarities that pop up on the show.

While not a globetrotting DJ, Chris Nelson, a Boston-based music journalist, has managed to make quite the mark in the ol’ blogosphere, hosting a series of monthly mixes on his Lemon-Red blog (www.lemon-red.org/blog/) that bear paying close attention to. Chris has managed to pull the shit-hot producers, DJs and artists that get music bloggers and record-store nerds alike worked up into a sweat, gleaning topnotch contributions from Ghislain Poirier, Fader scribe Nick Catchdubs, kitsch-rock fans Caps & Jones and Vancouver’s Paul Devro (the latter of which included a song by the voice of Bollywood, Asha Bhosle, earning him my respect). If you’re not even remotely interested in MTV’s Direct Effect or aware of the term “dirty South,” Lemon-Red’s chopped ’n’ screwed beats and drawling hip hop might not be to your taste, but as a gauge for the music your younger sibling will soon be salivatin’ for, it’s second to none.

BERTIE WOOSTER SEEKS REGINALD JEEVES… goldkicks@gmail.com

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