Photo via LA Weekly

The Essential Mix is both challenge and a rite of passage. You get two hours to summarize your entire style, selecting songs that have influenced the entirety of your musical career. There are a bunch of routes to take. You can lean heavily on your our own music, stay current and look cool, dig up a bunch of obscurities to burnish your cratedigger credentials or you can just do you. There was never any doubt what route Willie Bensussen, nee The Gaslamp Killer was going to do. He was diabolically constructed to slay his Essential Mix.

For the last half-decade, Gaslamp’s mixes were always all over the place. His brilliance as a selector was from his intuitive understanding of what shouldn’t fit but actually does. He might be the only DJ who can not only play “Real Muthphukkin’ G’s” in the same set as “I Am The Walrus,” and make both seem brand-new. If his Essential Mix isn’t the best one he’s ever done, it’s close. This runs the gamut, freak flag and spliff waving in the air. 2 brutal and beautiful hours of raw beats, boom bap, and Birdman. There is psych-rock, there is juke, there is Spaghetti Western. Exclusives from Lotus, HudMo, and Dilla. This isn’t a daily soundtrack, this is a diet. Concrete evidence why he’s one of the best DJs to dynamite a dance floor.

Tracklist and MP3 below the jump. Or stream it at the BBC.

Download:
ZIP: The Gaslamp Killer – BBC Essential Mix (Left-Click)

The Gaslamp Killer – Essential Mix (2012-12-01) by EverybodywantstobetheDJ

TRACKLIST

Wendy Carlos – Clockwork Orange Theme [Columbia]
Kuedo – Flight Path [Planet Mu]
LDFD – Micro-Chips (LDFD Remix) [Unreleased]
Dimlite – Orchard Wards
Flying Lotus – All In [Warp]
Flying Lotus – See Through You To Take feat Erykah Badu [Unreleased]
Portishead – Theme from ‘To Kill A Dead Man’ [Go Discs]
Radiohead – Idioteque [Parlophone]
Hudson Mohawke – Furnace Loop
2000F & J Kamata – You Dont Know What Love Is [Hyperdub]
Bames – Bronson
Changes & Esgar – One Day
Gaslamp Killer & DAEDELUS – Impulse (Free The Robots Remix)
Harmonic 313 – Wind It Up (Instrumental) [Hyperdub]
Hudson Mohawke – Multi Orch
Jon Wayne – Bowser [Alpha Pup Records]
Jon Wayne – Robot F*** [Stones Throw]
Mono/Poly – Crew
MRR-ADM – Untitled
The Legend of Zelda – Title BGM
Lorn – Automation [Brainfeeder]
Raekwon – Ice Cream (feat. Ghostface Killah & Method Man) [Epic]
Louis Armstrong – Potato Head Blues
Nine Inch Nails – Closer [Nothing/Island]
Madlib – Lifetime (Lifeline) [Stones Throw Records]
Quakers – Fitta Happier (Feat. Guilty Simpson & M.E.D.) [Stones Throw]
Radiohead – National Anthem (8bit Version) [White Label]
Flying Lotus – Pattern Grid World [Warp]
Roots Manuva – Witness (One Hope) [Big Dada]
Birdman – What Happened To That Boy (feat. Clipse) [Cash Money]
Om Unit – One For Gaslamp Killer
Dilla – Unknown [Unreleased]
Jeremiah Jae – Hash Knife Pony Express [Brainfeeder]
André 3000 – She Lives In My Lap [LaFace]
Slum Village – Raise It Up [V2]
Saffir – Scandelous
Oh No – Deliveries
Flying Lotus – Elephant Ride [Unreleased]
Sixtoo – Duration [Cease and Desist]
Radiohead – Myxomatosis [Parlophone]
Heralds of Change – Come On Now Work That [All City Records]
John Williams – Imperial March
Mr. Oizo – WC
Mr. Oizo – Peehurts
Aphex Twin – Windowlicker (Dials Re-Edit) [Warp Records]
Lou Champagne System – Silent Walking [Medical Records]
Connan Mockasin – Unicorn In Uniform [Because Music]
Dimlite – I Can’t Get Used To Those [Now-Again Records]
Flying Lotus – Phantasm
Unknown – O Babuaa Yeh Mahua
Black Sabbath – Electric Funeral [Vertigo]
[unknown] – Walk On By
Led Zeppelin – No Quarter [Atlantic]
Apryl Fool – The Lost Motherland [Import]
The Gaslamp Killer – Nissim [Brainfeeder]
The Gaslamp Killer – Apparitions (feat. Gonjasufi) [Brainfeeder]
Gaslamp Killer, Adrian Younge & MRR – Dead Vets [Brainfeeder]
Gaslamp Killer & Dimlite – Seven Years Of Bad Luck For Fun [Brainfeeder]
Connan Mockasin – It’s Choade My Dear [Phantasy]
Daedelus – Flying Sail (feat. Computer Jay) [Scion AV]
DJ Rashad – CCP [Lit City Trax]
EPROM – 808 Ride [Unreleased]
Esgar – Starscream [Hit and Run]
Kramphaft – Perfect Gain Structure [Saturate Records]
Phillip D Kick – Love & Gwala [Dummy Records]
Phillip D Kick – Champion Sound
Ennio Morricone – Per Un Pugno Di Dollari