Last week’s guest mix arrived courtesy of Vienna, Austria’s mash-up king: DJ Schmolli. With over 300 mash-ups under his belt, DJ Schmolli’s bootleg productions span a wide variety of genres and blend together sounds and vocals from Classic Rock, to Hip Hop & Rap, to House, and Pop. “For me,” he says,  “there are no boundaries within music. No matter what genre, old or new. Everything I like gets mashed into something unique and new!” With nearly 10,000 followers on his Soundcloud page at the time of publication; it would appear that there are plenty of listeners out there who agree with his approach to music!

Although the heyday of mash-ups might have come to an end here in Toronto (who can forget the hype that the pseudo-genre received with American DJ Girl Talk’s victory lap in 2010-11 with the release of “All Day“!?) DJs and audiences alike around the world are still drawn to the mashing of 2 or more seemingly disparate pieces of familiar music to produce a new twist on old favourites. In fact, the demand is so strong, that there’s a global network of monthly “Bootie” parties devoted to exclusively showcasing the art of the mash-up.

Perhaps the success of these parties is in part due to the performance aspect of the mash-up. Ultimately, the mash-up is a live phenomenon. The works themselves can rarely be sold due to licensing and copywrite issues inherent with the permissions related to the original recordings and they often exist as promos handed out to DJs on the ‘net as tools or bootlegs. But for the average music listener they show-up in a live club setting or within the tracklist of a dj mix set.  In my experience, they work best as a tools in a live environment to catch the crowd by surprise and re-engage them with something familiar yet different.

Since 2005 Schmolli’s been an active DJ/Producer/Bootlegger  in Europe and he frequently is booked to play both the Bootie mash-up paties, festivals, and regular club gigs. Despite their nebulous legal status, his mash-ups have appeared on BBC Radio 1 and Austria’s OE3. Yet, above all, the internet is indubitably the largest platform for his productions. His videos reach hundreds of thousands of views on Youtube, making him one of the most successful mashup producers in the world. 

Using Sony Acid Pro,  he combines instrumentals and acapellas and if needed will pitch up/down one of the source tracks to make it fit in key. With the tempos matched, he will occasionally use additional beats or sounds to fill in the mash-mix but in most cases, “I just use single elements of the source tracks. From then it’s just arranging and mixing, adjusting the different volumes. The last step would be some kind of mastering (by using a couple of software plug-ins) to finish the production.”

The mix below is chock-a-block with his mash-ups and bootlegs and is guaranteed to put a smile of your face as you shake your ass; watch yourself!

Tracklist

DJ Schmolli – Die Young, Donate Organs (Sultan & Ned Shepard/Kesha/Lil John/Fedde Le Grand/DJ Rick Lee)
Clockwork – Who’s Right Here (Plastik Funk & Tujamo/Fatboy Slim)
DJ Schmolli – All Right Who (Plastik Funk & Tujamo/Free)
DJs From Mars – This Is What Symphonic Roar Feels Like (Armin Van Buuren/Nicky Romero/Katy Perry)
DJ Schmolli – Safe And Dead Man Jack (Felguk/Capital Cities)
Benny Benassi – Satisfaction (Jewelz & Scott Sparks Bootleg)
MashMike – EasyBling (DJ Schmolli Re-Edit) (Seeed/Cro/BossHoss/Fugees/Busta Rhymes)
Missy Elliott – Work It (Ian Munro’s 100bpm Retwerk)
DJ Schmolli – Shout And Scream And Shout (Will.i.am ft. Britney Spears/Tears For Fears)
DJ Schmolli – Without Scream & Shout (Will.i.am ft. Britney Spears/Eminem)
DJ Schmolli – The One Boing Mash Boom (Dada Life/Avicii & Romero/Skrillex/Dire Straits)
Frank Carmine – Walls (Alex & Skytech/Harvel B./Bastille)
Rino Santaniello & Djwlady – We Will Mosh You (Kill The Noise/Queen/Wiz Khalifa)
Loo & Placido – Funky Dragula (Lipps Inc/Rob Zombie/Justice/Swankie Tunes)
DJ Schmolli – I Love Clarity (Icona Pop ft. Charli XCX/Zedd ft. Foxes)
DJ Dumpz – Tik Tok, Everybody Has No Limit! (Bob Sinclair ft. Sean Paul/2 Unlimited/Backstreet Boys)
DJ Schmolli – Another One Bites The Bodyrox Anthem (Run DMC vs. Bodyrox/LMFAO/Queen)
Major Lazer ft. Busy Signal – Watch Out For This (Bumaye) (Roger Stiller Bootleg)
Zedd ft. Hayley Williams – Stay The Night (Ostblockschlampen Remix)
SHAE! – Smells Like Cannonball Spirit (Showtek & Justin Prime/Nirvana)
Tobi S. – Smells Like Animals (Martin Garrix/Nirvana)
DJ Schmolli – Fuck You Animals (Martin Garrix/Nine Inch Nails)
DJ Schmolli – We Are Axel F’s New Internet Friends (DJ Schmolli Re-edit) (Knife Party/Basement Jaxx/Madonna/Linkin Park)
DJ Schmolli – I Like The Lights Out (Bodyrockers/Ellie Goulding/Martin Solveig/Global Deejays ft. Technotronic)
DJ Schmolli – Guaba Thrift Shop (sicher, Digger) (Marcel Woods/Macklemore & Ryan Lewis ft. Wanz/Das Bo/Bodyrockers)
DJ Schmolli – Atom Wild Thing (Nari & Milani/Tone Loc)
The Bloody Beetroots ft. Willy William – Whoop Whoop (Willy William Remix)
DJs From Mars & Loo & Placido – Aerodynamic Stairways To Diamonds (Daft Punk/Jus Jack/Led Zeppelin/Rihanna)
DJ Schmolli – KNASbusters (Steve Angello/Ray Parker Jr.)
Roger Stiller – Get The Lights Of Party (Sick Individuals/Pink)
DJ Schmolli – Epic Relax (Sandro Silva & Quintino/Frankie Goes To Hollywood)
DJ Schmolli – Ode To Rock ‘N’ Roll (TJR/AC/DC/Joan Jett)
DJs From Mars vs. DJ Schmolli – Are You Gonna Change The Way You Kiss Me (Example vs. Lenny Kravitz)
DJ Schmolli – Tsunami Can’t Hold Us (DVBBS & Borgeous & Lookas x HLTR$KLTR/Macklemore ft. Ryan Lewis)
DJ Schmolli – Raise The Epic Motherfucker (Dada Life & Ace Future/Pink)
Queen – I Want To Break Free (Acapella)
DJ Schmolli – Titanium 500 (David Guetta ft. Sia/The Proclaimers/Midnight Oil)
Jason Derulo – Talk Dirty (Alex Morgan Bootleg)
DJ Schmolli – Need To Get Away Of Your Love (Bingo Players/Ellie Goulding/Tocadisco)
DJ Schmolli – Brother Timber Wizard (Martin Garrix & Jay Hardway/Avicii ft. Dan Tyminski/Pitbull ft. Kesha)
DJ Schmolli – Chop Suey Music Revolution (R3hab & NERVO & Ummet Ozcan & Famous Affairs vs. System Of A Down vs. Madonna)