READ THE MANIFESTO — THE THESIS BEHIND FILTER/DISTORT●CURATOR'S PICK: DUMME JUNGS CHEMICAL JUMP GUEST MIX, DEC 2011 — STREAM NOW●THE CANON — 36 TRACKS, 24 PLAYABLE INLINE●FIVE LONG-FORM ESSAYS LIVE — MORE SHIPPING SOON●READ THE MANIFESTO — THE THESIS BEHIND FILTER/DISTORT●
DAY ONEA NEW PUBLICATION ABOUT 2007–2014 DANCE MUSIC
The seven years dance music caught fire
From Cross to the Avicii hangover. A field guide to the era critics misfiled as a bubble and fans misfiled as a phase. One continuous argument, and a canon we should have written ten years ago.
The essays
5 PIECES LIVE
MANIFESTO2007–201412 MIN
The seven years dance music caught fire and we pretended it didn't matter
Critics gave Justice a documentary and Avicii a eulogy and skipped the 2,500-day middle. This is the thesis behind FILTER/DISTORT — what the era was, who built it, and why it deserves the canon it never got.
FILTER/DISTORT EDITORIAL
DEEP CUT2010–20127 MIN
Dumme Jungs were the secret engine of the entire scene
Three remixes on the same playlist. Not coincidence. The Hamburg duo who quietly soundtracked everyone else's biggest year.
FILTER/DISTORT EDITORIAL
The feed
MORE ESSAYS
The mixes
4 CURATOR'S PICKS
The crate
FIRST FINDS
NOTES — DAY ONE
REAL THINGS, REAL LINKS
01
SOUNDCLOUD
The Dumme Jungs guest mix for Chemical Jump from December 2011, still live on Dumme Jungs' SoundCloud. Forty-two tracks, sixty-eight thousand plays, six thousand downloads. The founding document of this entire project. Streamable in our Mixes section.
02
SOUNDCLOUD
Hardwell's BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix from November 2012 — the document of Dirty Dutch at peak power. Two hours, on Hardwell's own SoundCloud. Linked in our Mixes section.
03
SOUNDCLOUD
Skrillex's June 2013 Essential Mix. The moment OWSLA's entire roster — Dog Blood, Knife Party, Torro Torro — went from curiosity to canon. On Skrillex's official channel.
04
YOUTUBE
Twenty-four tracks from our canon are now playable inline on the Canon page, sourced from verified official artist and label channels. The other twelve fall back to YouTube search — we'd rather link out than embed the wrong video.
The Canon 2007 — 2014
Thirty-six tracks. Seven years. One continuous argument that this was the decade's most important moment in dance music. The list isn't ranked — it's chronological. ◆ marks essential entries. Tracks with the play icon stream inline; the ↗ icon opens YouTube in a new tab.
◆ NOW PLAYING —
The Mixes
We haven't recorded our own mixes yet — those are coming once the publication has its feet under it. In the meantime, here are four sets from the era that we keep coming back to, streamed from the original artists' SoundCloud pages. The Dumme Jungs guest mix for Chemical Jump from December 2011 is the lead pick — it's the founding document of this whole project, made by the duo we wrote about for the blog we're trying to spiritually succeed. Click play on any of them to stream inline.
The Crate
The idea is a regular link roll — new rips, reissues, interviews, archive surfaces — the spiritual successor to the MP3 blogs of the era. We're starting with the real finds that built this site. As we discover more, this is where they'll live.
NOTES — DAY ONE
REAL THINGS, REAL LINKS
01
SOUNDCLOUD
The Dumme Jungs guest mix for Chemical Jump from December 2011, still live on Dumme Jungs' SoundCloud. Forty-two tracks, sixty-eight thousand plays, six thousand downloads. The founding document of this entire project. Streamable in our Mixes section.
02
SOUNDCLOUD
Hardwell's BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix from November 2012 — the document of Dirty Dutch at peak power. Two hours, on Hardwell's own SoundCloud. Linked in our Mixes section.
03
SOUNDCLOUD
Skrillex's June 2013 Essential Mix. The moment OWSLA's entire roster — Dog Blood, Knife Party, Torro Torro — went from curiosity to canon. On Skrillex's official channel.
04
YOUTUBE
Twenty-four tracks from our canon are now playable inline on the Canon page, sourced from verified official artist and label channels. The other twelve fall back to YouTube search — we'd rather link out than embed the wrong video.
05
EDITORIAL
Five long-form essays live at launch: the Manifesto, Tommy Trash's Future Folk, Cross at 19, Dirty Dutch as the unwritten chapter, and the Dumme Jungs deep cut. Six more in the feed are in progress.
FUTURE ISSUES
COMING SOON
·
TBD
The Crate will publish on a real cadence once we have something to publish regularly. The current plan: surface one verified archive find, one reissue, one interview, and one rip per issue. Have something we should know about? hello@filterdistort.com
About us
FILTER/DISTORT is a new publication dedicated to the seven years between 2007 and 2014 when electronic dance music caught fire, broke containment, and rebuilt the global pop landscape on its way out the door.
We exist because critics gave Justice a documentary and Avicii a eulogy and skipped the 2,500-day middle. The blog house revival has been written about endlessly. The EDM bubble has been written about cynically. The continuous arc between them — the Dutch house, the complextro, the Beatport-era electro that connected one to the other — has barely been written about at all.
This is the canon for the era nobody got around to canonizing. Long-form essays. Themed mixes with proper liner notes. A regularly updated crate of new finds, reissues, interviews and rips. The closest thing left to the MP3 blogs we used to actually love.
We write for people who remember and people who weren't there. We assume both audiences can keep up.
Where we are
Day one. Five long-form essays live, the canon up and playable, four curator's picks streaming inline. Six more essays in the pipeline. The publishing cadence will settle as we settle.
Editorial
No reviews of new releases. No festival coverage. No artist news cycles. We don't compete with Resident Advisor or DJ Mag — we cover what they finished covering twelve years ago.
Get involved
Have a pitch, a tip, a rare find from the era, or a record we should have covered already? Write to us. We're small and reachable.