Mark Dynamix’s career as a DJ stretches back nearly as far as time itself: well, as far as the birth of the Sydney dance scene at the very least. As one of Sydney’s seminal turntable technicians he has graced the decks at some of its highest profile residencies including Sublime, Plastic, Sounds on Sunday, Ear Candy and at his peak was holding down more than ten gigs a week. Scaling back his DJ commitments recently he’s become a central force behind Ministry of Sound’s mega-selling Australian presence and worked behind the scenes in the industry, balancing it out with his sole weekly residency at the uber-credible Chinese Laundry. Freed for the moment from the shackles of the massive-selling Annual compilations Dynamix has been given free reign with Mixtape, the first in a new series that aims to capture the underground nature of old-school mixtapes.

Mixtape sees Dynamix sharing his own personal selection of what’s hot right now but far from being a self-indulgent trip into his own ego, the mix is tough, chunky and brimming with floor-filling smashers that would shatter the architectural supports in any nightclub. To me it sounds like a fairly typical mix compilation rather than embodying any sort of ‘old-school’ aesthetic, but it’s far removed from any of his recent MOS excursions: dirty German nastiness to the core, lovers of cheesy electro and funky house need not apply.

Dynamix saw the electro/tech/minimal wave approaching from way back and Mixtape shows he’s still well ahead of the dance music curve. While I’ll openly admit to being a little bored and frustrated by the tech-heavy sound that has grown in popularity, I was won over by Mixtape – a CD of electro/tech/minimal for those who don’t like electro/tech/minimal perhaps. Kicking it off with some delicious downbeat electro from Daso, the sounds grow crunchier as Dynamix picks up the pace, dropping the electro-heavy bassline of Bodzin & Huntemann’s 37 Degrees with all the prerequisite squeaks and bleeps we’ve come to expect.

We even get treated to double shot of his own production efforts in collaboration with Jaytech. Destructor is a tight techy offering that throws acid 303 riffs all over the place while their mix of Stisch’s Turn Around is a pumping fusion of electro, progressive and even trance that pushes all the right buttons. The second half of Mixtape ramps up the pace and Dynamix really begins to rock it hard with some pumping tech, slamming it home with the dirty electro riffage of Alex Gopher’s Dust and keeping the tension high with the likes of Roel H’s mix of Speedcats.

Dynamix’s tight technical skills and ability to move effortlessly across the whole gamut of dance genres has put him in a class of his own, and he’s still managing to track down those elusive ‘big tracks’ that have compelled my aspiring DJ mates to gasp on more than one occasion, “where the hell does that man do his record shopping?” For those not enamoured with the current electro/tech/minimal invasion that Dynamix himself spearheaded in Sydney then Mixtape is hardly going to make you a convert: it’s all a little cold and lacking in warmth and can tend to lose much of its impact when not booming over a club PA. But for those who have been digging his Chinese Laundry sets lately, Mixtape represents the perfect slice of what’s hot and fresh in dance at the moment.