2011 is finally finishing up so it's time for my thoughts on the musical year, complete with a brand new mix bringing together my top producers and labels from the last 12 months. I'll also be following this up with my top singles and albums as I did at the end of 2010.

Soooooooooo, just a quick bit of chat about the mix… it's 77mins of techno starting off with a housier vibe and then moving through to the darker, heady stuff to finish. First up is Efdemin on Dial remixed by the ever reliable Deadbeat who put out an album you'll hear more about in my top album run down. Following two fantastic tracks from George Fitzgerald and Scuba we have one of the biggest tunes for me this year in the shape of KiNK's remix for Gingy & Bordello, a deep acid remix that holds no prisoners with that bassline. More deepness follows from techno stalwart Funk D'Void which mixes into Deetron's functional beat tool, heralding the move into the tougher part of the mix.

Soma Quality Recordings celebrated their 20th birthday this year so to represent them i've stuck in a great tech house tune from Mark Henning. Raudive, Gorman and Lindau all serve up tough, raw slabs of techno before the mix starts to get quite spaced-out and heady care of a lush atmospheric tune from Cassegrain. Then comes the brutal back-to-back tunes from The Black Dog and Perc, two artists who have released fantastic albums this year, along with countless remixes/singles.

The final part of the mix hits hard, kicking of with Regis' Blood witness, a killer cut taken from his first solo EP in years. Objekt - who is easily one of my artists of this year - delivers a brutal, frantic techno track that perfectly sets up one of the tunes of 2011, 'Stolen' by Paul Woolford and Psycatron. Another HUGE label also celebrated their 20th anniversary this year, Carl Craig's Planet E Communications. They had a whole load of great releases this year but I've picked one from the Detroit resident Luke Hess under his Reference alias, proper big room Detroit grooves in that one. After a dark, dubby interlude from Dadub comes a little mash-up I created with Sawf's 'Zelo' and a lush, synth heavy tune from Peter Van Hoesen. Following that final slice of epic-ness comes a sublime tune to end the mix with, E.R.P. and Hardfloor's 'The Life We Choose', not a new one for this year but just another perfect piece of music to end my snapshot of techno in 2011... hope you all enjoy

End of Year Techno 2011 by Tom Lennox

00:00 Efdemin - Shoeshine (Deadbeat Remix) - DIal
05:50 Lee Jones - Moment (George Fitzgerald Remix) - Aus Music
07:05 SCB - Mace - SCB
12:08 Gingy & Bordello - Body Acid (KiNK's In Deep Remix) - Twin Turbo
17:13 Paul Lorain - Envy (Funk D'Void Remix) - Bigger Deer
21:43 Roots Panorama - Threee (Deetron Beeetz) - Versatile
23:43 Slam - Stepback (Mark Henning Remix) - Soma
27:42 Raudive - Blue Bags - Rrygular
31:40 Kevin Gorman - Cast - Curle
35:52 Roman Lindau - Borne - Inertia
37:42 Cassegrain - Lop Nor - Prologue
43:20 The Black Dog - Bass Mantra - Dust Science
46:02 Perc - Chromamoan - Perc Trax
48.43 The Black Dog - Dissident Bleep - Dust Science
51:39 Regis - Blood Witness - Blackest Ever Black
52:37 SBTRKT - Wildfire (Objekt Dub Mix) - SBJEKT
56:46 Paul Woolford & Psycatron - Stolen (Original Mix) - Hot Flush
60:10 Reference - Another Place (Zonestrumental Mix) - Planet E
64:02 Dadub - Metropolis - Stroboscopic Atrefacts
65:58 Sawf - Zelo (Sawf Dub) - Perc Trax/Peter Van Hoesen - Axis Mundi - Ostgut Ton
69:50 Hardfloor - The Life We Choose (E.R.P. Remix) - Hardfloor

Ok, so I broke my promise, it’s been two whole months since the last post but I’ve come bearing a gift in the shape of a brand new mix! As usual, no posts mean a very busy time and it’s certainly been that, on the music front I’ve been tying up loose ends and working on finishing some new material. Unfortunately the tracks I was working on a couple of months ago now can’t be opened on my Mac so I’ve been trying to solve that problem in order to get ‘em up online ready for all you guys to listen to. But it’s not all been bad news, I’ve also managed to sort out my career change I’d been thinking about for a while now and have quit my job and moved on to get my PGCE to teach Physics at secondary school level. A massive move but one that is going to challenge me, be very rewarding and bring me closer to what I’m really interested in. Oh and did I mention long holidays to work on the tunes hehe ...Click here to read the full post

It seems a whole month has gone by since my last post, but I guess that’s what happens when you get so caught up in the flurry and excitement of a royal wedding, however for me the last few weeks has been concerned with writing new material and a new mix. So… firstly I’ve finished a brand new track called ‘Momentum’ that will be uploaded to the Soundcloud very soon, as well as a remix for the Forbidden Fruit Recordings owner Dark Room Robot, who will also be having a crack at remixing ‘Momentum’. In addition to these two new productions I’ve nearly finished work on a two-part track – still untitled at the moment – which is heavy on the synths and melodies and quite a shift in sound from my previous tunes. I’ll have more info on all of that new stuff in the next blog entry (promise it won’t be another 30 days away either), so keep your eyes peeled! ...Click here to read the full post

It’s been a good 2011 musically so far with the release of my Corsica EP on the excellent new Sounds of Juan label and a fantastic gig that I DJed at for the Endemic Digital guys at Ministry of Sound. ...Click here to read the full post

It’s the 7th March and that means that my new release on the Endemic Digital off-shoot, Sounds of Juan, is out now as a Beatport.com exclusive. ...Click here to read the full post

Corsica EP

Music and gig news now as next week sees the release of my brand new EP on Wez Saunders and Ian Cheshire’s new techno-leaning imprint, Sounds of Juan. The ‘Corsica EP’ is a four track release with tunes from the last couple of years. First up is Corsica (Heads Down) which is a real peak time tune originally written for the immense Morgan Face night held at Corsica Studios last January, born from the same sessions as ‘ARN Dub’, which is also on the EP. Both of those are bass heavy stripped down techno tracks, with ‘ARN Dub’ being the more atmospheric of the two. ...Click here to read more about the release and upcoming gig

So we’ve had the singles, now it’s time for the albums. As with the singles rundown there was a lot to choose from last year so picking a top 5 was no easy feat. I've kept it quite techno-centric (how could I not? ) although its not all club orientated material. You'll be glad to hear that I'm letting the tunes do the talking here, giving you a couple of clips from the albums and trying to keep the text to a minimum(ish). There's loads of reviews out there about these so I'm sure you can do the digging for yourself if you're interested Before I kick off the list I'd just like to mention a few of the albums that I didn't include that deserve a shout out
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Ok it’s a bit late perhaps (although they're still running various "How Funny Was 2010?" programs on TV so I'm sure I'm forgiven) but it’s time for my rundown of the top tracks that did it for me in 2010. It was a tough list to compile as there have been some excellent releases by some very talented producers, both for the club and the head. I’ve tried to cover all bases but I’d love to hear from you guys about your faves from last year and who you think is going to own 2011, enjoy ...Click here to read the full rundown of the best from 2010