Guest MixTAPE: Tom Cox (a.k.a. Pipecock)

Hopefully all you guys had a good Christmas and NYE, and maybe spent some of your moolah on some of the things you may have missed from our top 100 12"s. We're finally back from our holidays to present you with a specially commissioned mix from Pittsburgh resident Tom Cox. Known as the outspoken but always entertaining 'Pipecock' to people who trawl the forums, he caught my eye as someone who has a lot in common musically with us lot over here at TAPE. Sometimes we can be slightly Euro-centric in these pages (hell, we do live here!), so I asked Tom to do us a guest mix consisting of US only jams, and thankfully he obliged! Here's Tom with the blurb:

"This mix was a little more difficult than usual for me. Usually I mix by mood first and foremost, regardless of genre, year, or BPM. For this mix, showcasing house and techno artists from the US was the goal, so I had to make some decisions. After trying a couple different concepts, I ended up going with a mixup of some of the best of the past year as well as a couple other favorites from previous years that I had been wanting to throw in a mix but never quite fit in.

Things start off on the Chicago tip, defining house music with Larry Heard and then moving on to Malik Pittman's 808 rhythm trax. Then I went a bit spacey with the crazy remix of Kelly Polar (who hails from somewhere in New England), an obscure cut featuring the insanely overlooked Walt J. (of Detroit's Dow Records fame), and Omar-S' newest banger. Then the soul really kicked in with cuts by Atlanta's Kai Alce, North Carolina's $tinkworx, and Detroit house legends Andrés, Delano Smith, and Lawrence Hall. A nasty edit of a Ronnie Laws cut by Detroit expatriate Recloose signalled the move into the deepest territory. Cleveland resident Warren Harris (aka Hanna) beats the hell out of his drum machine's swing function, while Kevin Reynolds and Still Going combine electronics and live sounds in a smooth mix. Mr. Kenny Dixon, Jr. ends it with his ridiculously loopy edit of a Mario Winans cut, one of my personal favorite joints to drop at the end of the night.

This is how my man Jwan Allen and I do things at our biweekly Night Moods, deep and emotional house and techno (mixed with lots of other stuff, of course!), so i named it "412 Deep". Hope all you TAPE-aholics enjoy it! Thanks to Richard and all TAPE crew, peace my brothers."

1) Loosefingers - What Is House? // Alleviated
2) Malik Pittman - Chicago Nights // Unirhythm
3) Kelley Polar - Rosenband (Magic Tim's Instrumental Version) // Environ
4) Walt & Dave - Nuponty // Vigilante
5) Mike Huckaby - Wavetable No. 9 // SYNTH
6) Omar-S - Psychotic Photosynthesis // FXHE
7) Kai Alcé - Broken Headlights // Real Soon
8) Smith-Hall - Power In Unity // Mixmode
9) $tinkworx - No Luv // Delsin
10) Andrés - C2 // KDJ
11) Chow Daddy - Never Fade // Moxie
12) Warren Harris - Metropolitan // Sound Signature
13) Patrice Scott - Raw Fusion // Sistrum
14) Kevin Reynolds - Anonymous Room At The Corridor Of Last Night // Todhchai
15) Still Going - Still Going Theme // DFA
16) Kenny Dixon Jr. - Should've Known // Private Collection

Download:
Tom Cox - '412 Deep' Mixxx

Nice. A few of my favourites (Loosefingers, Mike Huckaby, Patrice Scott...), and quite a few that I haven't picked up on before. Discogs here I come! If you fancy a bit more of Tom's mixage and ramblings, then you should check out him and his pals' infinitestatemachine blog. There's loads of good stuff over there, so what are you waiting for?