Erol Alkan celebrates the DJ edit in a new playlist

Welcome back to Selections, a series of artist-curated playlists from those in the know.

As the noughties continue to have a resurgence in popularity, the DJ edit of classic tunes from the era have become a regular fixture on the dancefloor. An artist very much embedded within this is Erol Alkan.

A true titan of the indie scene, during the 00s Alkan was responsible for influential indie-rave mash-up clubnight Trash – at which he was a resident DJ alongside regular appearances from fellow noughties mainstays such as LCD Soundsystem, 2ManyDJs and Bloc Party. At that time, in his production capacity, Alkan was also behind releases for the likes of Late Of The Pier, Long Blondes, and Mystery Jets.

Elsewhere within his impressive repertoire, Alkan heads up Phantasy – an imprint that has put out releases from Daniel Avery, Connan Mockasin and TERR. Most recently, Alkan also contributed to Josh Wink’s Higher State Of Consciousness remix project, with an edit he made blending Wink with The Rapture for his own DJ sets some 20 years ago getting an official release for the first time.

This remix project is what inspires Alkan’s Selections playlist here – consisting of tracks that fall under the ‘DJ edits’ category. “Many of them sound and feel they were made by the producer/DJ for themselves and their own DJ sets, and then later shared”, Alkan says. “The edit I made of Josh Wink and The Rapture has just been released 20 years after it was made solely for my own use, and it’s quite surreal to see it given an official release especially after so long.”

“Since then, it’s become far quicker and easier to either blend two or three tracks together or make an edit,” Alkan continues. “The one constant value to a good edit is the idea or intention, and this selection celebrates both the curation and execution of what I feel is a good DJ edit. There are many noticeable absences due to them not being on Bandcamp or even in digital form, such as ones made by Soulwax who were kindred spirits back in the early 00s, and they still are. As the slogan on countless edit 12″s would state: For DJ use only.”