We begin a wrap-up of favorite Balance Series singles with Joe Miller, who walks us through his top picks from his favorite series entries…
It’s safe to say the Balance Series has carved out a significant space in the electronic music world. With over 30 compilations, the depth of music featured is staggering—over 6,000 tracks spanning the full spectrum of electronic genres, from deep house to techno, and everything in between. For many, the series isn’t just music; it’s a time capsule.
Everyone has their favorite release—a tracklist that captures a moment in their lives, or a specific track imprinted like a mental tattoo. Extrapolate from there, and the series becomes a rich documentation of the ever-shifting trends in electronic music: to be exact, a quarter-century’s worth of progressive dance music evolution.
Curating the essentials
Combing through that collection and choosing favorites is a monumental task. With such a vast array of tracks, it’s almost impossible to narrow down the standouts without feeling like you’re leaving something essential behind. Thankfully, Balance alumni Joe Miller (featured in press pic 👆🏽) was up to the challenge.
The criminally underrated producer is known for his seemingly endless vault of musical knowledge. If you require proof, check out his incredible 2013 mix for Balance—a 40-track, one-hour set that he described as “more of an audio collage than a sequential mix.” It truly is a work of musical art.
For this exercise, the Australian producer whittled his selections down to 17 tracks, each taken from a different Balance compilation. We start the countdown from the top with his first 9 selections, which we’ll follow up with his final picks before moving on to the rest of the series.
Wingbeats (Max Cooper Remix)
In progressive house groups, there’s a popular idea that (given the low entry barrier) we’re drowning in a flood of Tale of Us clones, with old masters floundering thanks to Daniel Ek’s supreme detachment from reality.
A single track can’t refute that whole argument – especially the bit about Daniel Ek – but this Max Cooper remix is a counterexample on several fronts: unconventional chord progressions; rich, organic percussion that’s high-res without becoming soullessly digital; Aphex-like attention to detail; and sheer originality.
Elements of this track would have been impossible twenty-five years ago.
Touch Absence
A summit on a mix full of summits, pieced together with a level of neurotic passion that may be unparalleled across the Balance back-catalogue. Nineties nostalgia without mawkishness or irony.
Fearless (RaySoo Dxb Mix)
Hard to pick a highlight from Stacey’s two discs because he made the whole experience so coherent. That’s despite impressive range, with Pullen including artists as varied as Fake Blood, Cid Inc. and Osunlade. This version of DJ Hightech and IZT’s ‘Fearless’ had me coming back for multiple listens; its delicacy, insistent groove and sophisticated optimism should see DJs revisiting it for years.
The Truth
For my money, Magda‘s mix is the weirdest Balance compilation to date, even factoring in Agoria‘s experiments. Conjuring Berlin fetish parties, New York installation artists, and the self-assurance of haute couture, she took a courageous approach to a beloved mix series and somehow pulled it off.
Though far from the weirdest thing on 027, this song from Lucille (director; installation artist) and Nicholas Desamory (cellist; composer; conceptual artist) is perhaps its most poignant, a deft blend of dissociative minimal and psych folk.
On My Way to Hell (Balance Mix)
Like the mix itself, this track is a bolt from the blue: tender, compelling, and fresh.
Dreamscape
A lot of recent Balance highlights have been on the gentler side. This one isn’t; it just sums up the muscular, wayward quality of a Tenaglia set. Danny could so easily have overintelluctualised this after a nine-year mix CD hiatus, but instead he mixed something restrained that’ll still be danceable in twenty years.
‘Dreamscape’ is the point of no return on disc two.
Choices (Fred P Reshape)
Will Saul smoothed the path for a style of Balance mix that took in alienating house music, full of parallel chords invoking the loneliness of space. I can’t help thinking Radio Slave took a cue from Balance 015, often looking back past the series’ progressive house origins to the Afrofuturist roots of all modern dance music.
Black Jazz Consortium’s Fred P puts a classic spin on this early Nina Kraviz album track, and it’s an enjoyably dysphoric moment in this percussion-heavy mix.
Hot On The Heels Of Love (Ratcliffe Remix)
Miles away from the industrial anarchy of Genesis P–Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti at their most abrasive, Ratfcliffe’s remix is a shimmering highlight on this refined selection of Detroit Techno, Berlin House and the Yorkosphere from Swiss maestro Deetron.
Honey Wine
This insistently gorgeous piece of cannabinoid house music will likely be the least controversial pick on this list. Drawing on the highest quanitity of original production up to this point in the series, Saiz span a dreamlike narrative of tape-saturated magic, channelling the beauty of the natural world, smoky mind-labyrinths and – no getting around it – Boards of Canada.
It was a bold mix, personal, warm and hard to categorise, and it filled the hole left behind as James Holden and Gemma Sheppard reinvented Border Community.
