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When various music circles started buzzing in early 2010 about a Brooklyn duo that fused elements of the American jam-band aesthetic with ecstatic trance, we approached with due caution. Fast-forward over the past three years and, what could have potentially gone so wrong has gone so right.

This Take 10 feature could almost have been invented to showcase the Optimo duo's magnificently eclectic influences. Renowned for their legendary Sunday night sessions at the Sub Club in Glasgow in the nineties and noughties.

Barely a week goes by without some muso or other declaring the death of the mix CD. And you can understand why, given the proliferation of free mixes that pop up like pop-ups each and every day on the worldwide web. Once every four or so years, though, all that changes, people forget to argue and unite in appreciation of the form once more.

Some days you wake up and just have a blinder — for Dusky that blinder has been pretty much every day for the last year. It’s fair to say that the London duo have — in technical parlance — well-and-truly smashed it. Number #1 iTunes Dance Single of 2012? In the bag with the beyond-ubiquitous 'Flo Jam'. Radio 1 Essential Mix? Done, knocked off with style, and shortlisted for mix of the year. They’ve helped shift the paradigms for dubstep and house, had productions rinsed by everyone from Loefah to Calvin Harris, and killed it in Ibiza at DC-10. Ebullient and still humble, is it any surprise that Dusky producers Alfie Granger-Howell and Nick Harriman are loving life right now?

The musical feast that is BPM Festival helped us to catch up with lots of up-coming acts who had been on our radar for some...

“I love listening to a cool techno DJ, in a club, but if you go and see Swedish House Mafia DJ, for example, there’s no artistry involved. They are just getting behind the decks, with a finished CD, and pressing play then putting their hands in the air. This is something that is so wrong, because they get paid so much money for that.”

In the mid-‘90s, drum & bass was the most futuristic, kick-ass, innovative UK-derived music around. After a gestation period in the underground, breakbeat science exploded into the mainstream, although that led to assorted TV ads and theme tunes and suchlike co-opting a d&b element to them. But because the scene itself was controlled by the DJs — Bryan Gee, Fab & Groove, Goldie, Hype etc — it was able to be steered back underground, so that by the end of the 20th century d&b was largely associated with the dark tech-step sound of No U-Turn et al.

The release of the CDJ-2000 shook up clubland’s DJ booths and changed the way many DJs the world over prepared and played their sets — as well as bringing Pioneer to the forefront of DJ technology once again.

Pioneer have just released one of the most intriguing and hyped pieces of DJ equipment — the Pioneer XDJ-Aero. It's not often that a product can live up to the expectations that this kind of hype generates, but Pioneer have outdone themselves and have managed to create something truly revolutionary with the XDJ-Aero.

There’s a lot of truth in saying that size doesn’t matter — especially when we’re talking about the new Traktor S2 controller. The boys in...

Air guitar contests are generally considered an oddity, so when I entered one last weekend (no, I didn't win) and saw a competitor accompanied by...

In Amsterdam to pick up some industry insight from those that have been there, done that and are still pushing it forward? Looking to beef...

Amsterdam – Europe's liberal experiment – a place where culture and beauty sit beside decadence and desire. Where the buildings loom peerlessly above the multiple...

Chicago will host its first house music festival (Move!) in July

The local authorities are supporting Move! Festival

Lady D will DJ at Move! Festival...