Top 5 Electronica Sets of 2005

*CORRECTED*2005 definitely wins the Best Year on the Dancefloor award. I clocked more hours on it (dancing that is, not standing around) than any other year prior. Here are my top five moments:

5. RC Lair & Timeline @ Get Together
It took months for me to get over this one. RC and Timeline tagged at the second (and best) Get Together. The last hour was nuts. The music kept on getting more potent and the crowd was swelling with energy.

4. James E's morning set @ Summer'Zend
The night ended up being super boring but around 08.00 James took to the decks and all those hours of wandering aimlessly paid off and with compound interest. It was dark, solid and unrelentless. A very profound experience for me.

3. Felix da Housecat @ Caprice
Once more, the DJ I love to hate shut me up by playing a fascinating set with vanguard mixing. Just like his 2004 Vancouver set he played all different genres and I was very surprised that he didn't play his regular slew of overplayed hype (i.e. Silver Screen, Shower Scene). Please don't confuse this set with his Club 686 disaster on Halloween. The amateur shit he pulled has me back hating him and with all the gusto in the world. And how could I ever forget the awfulness of his set in Barcelona?

2. The Spanish Banks parties
Just the fact that these parties were thrown every single week and every single week there would be a run-in with the cops and they'd threaten to arrest and confiscate and fine and still they were thrown every single week and people from all cliques came to party and hang out - just that in and of itself is a wonderful thing. The fact that my favourite genre was blared out of those speakers makes for the Best. Summmer. Ever. Thank you so much.

1. The Hacker @ Get Together
The way The Hacker was merging and tweaking the tracks was amazing. Never, ever in my life have I ever been exposed to such a beautiful thing. It wasn't just a set, it was a chess match - calculation, foresight, intuition and emotion were put into this three dimensional, multi-sensory, aural dreamscape. Serious. It was so amazing how he could make the set ebb and flow in rhythm and intensity. And the fact that he rarely uses his headphones is really hot.