Dave Seaman – Selador Sessions Vol 1.

Label: SeladorScore: 9/10

I was really looking forward to hearing this mix, having followed how it came about, which was that Dave Seaman took a massive gamble and created a Kickstarter campaign that aimed to raise £25,000 to fund the costs of the CD. Balls of steel eh?Already considered a legendary figure within UK dance music, he further enhanced his reputation when he managed to firstly pull it off with days to spare and secondly raise £7,000 above the original figure. It was a big risk as he’d have looked incredibly foolish if, after all this fanfare, the mix wasn’t all that; but as it turns out, it’s absolutely superb.It’s all about melody: some of it Deep (in a Diynamic/Solomun-style manner), some of it electronic, some of it nasty, some of it epic.  And Dave Seaman being Dave Seaman, he’s done his homework.  He’s one of those DJs that if you asked him at the end of a club set what he just played, he could probably reel off the entire set list in the right order – he’s a practicer and a rehearser – and that is exactly what you want with a mix CD.The way it progresses is no accident – you can tell there are plenty of re-edits and bits of chopping here and there to make it all fit; and there’s some really nice, inventive mixes, which are more about effects than they are about beat matching. The first big moment comes with the Tube & Berger remix of Coyu & Imbernon – Open Air, which puts you in Diynamic kinda territory, with a warm but ‘rotary’-sounding lead.  While the chances are slim that you could ever see a French Horn with a turbine inside it, if you did, I expect it would sound a bit like this.  There are a few tracks with sounds like this throughout the mix and it adds an ever so slightly sinister edge to it.Next listeners should hold on tight for a bit of Paul Rutherford – Get Real (Pete Gooding remix) later on CD1 – that came as a welcome surprise, especially considering the delirious female vocal on it.CD2 opens up with Dave Seaman’s remix of what was the first release on Selador, Samu L – Restless Dreams, which naggingly samples Simon & Garfunkel – The Sound Of Silence.  Then, after some straight-up modern-day Deep House, it gets scary with Solomun’s YesNoMaybe before eventually ending in what can only be described as epic fashion – it gets big room and intense; you can almost feel yourself being blinded by the smoke machine and white light.  If you look at the luminaries that feature on CD2 – the likes of Gabriel Ananda, Scuba, Solomun, Azara & III, KiNK, Jamie Jones – you know it’s likely to be good; but the emotional momentum that Seaman manages to generate is what makes this a masterpiece.