!K7 Records

Some mixes are just mixes, but some change the agenda. Rupert Parkes, aka Photek, was determined that his DJ-Kicks set would be the latter. “I wanted to create one of those classic listening experiences,” he says. “With a mix like this, you can either bang it with the most current dancefloor tunes, or you can put a theme into it, or you can make it a journey. I was thinking about the classic LTJ Bukem mix tapes that I first came across in ’92 and ’93 and how epic they were. There was such a range of styles on there, they were so timeless and had real character. They had some personality. That’s what I wanted to capture with my DJ-Kicks mix.” The DJ-Kicks mix marks a new era for Parkes, who seemed to withdraw from the music scene in 2007. He had long been disillusioned with the constraints of the drum’n’bass scene he helped pioneer. “When I played in clubs, there was never any music I liked either side of my set. I wondered why I was part of this niche when it seemed I was a square peg in a round hole.” When he started releasing music again last year with the Avalanche EP it had more in common with post dubstep than anything else — bass heavy music that’s hard to categorise — but really it wasn’t like anything else at all. “If dubstep has taught us one thing it’s to let it all go,” says Parkes. “Just let stuff happen and sort it out later.”