Best. CD. Ever.

If there's one thing I'm not embarrassed about it's bragging about who and what my favourite people and things are. But explaining why exactly is so difficult. My list of favourites is relatively short, I rarely add to it and it's topped by my little sister. She's my number one but if you ask me to explain I'll choke on my tears and say, "I don't know." Ask me about Matisse's Red Fish and all I can do is shrug. Then there's Vitalic. I'm completely and utterly in love with his sound but if you try to get me to disclose why you'll just get a bunch of mismatched adjectives linked together by the word "fuck" and Fischerspooner-style gasps.

I'll chalk it up to the fact that I treat the things I love as if they are truly ephemeral and sublime and I don't want to taint them with words of this world, especially if they are chosen by me and especially if all I succeed in doing is get the wrong idea across (and that's usually the case). Maybe I'll get the message through to you if I only use the present tense and one-syllable words.

So here, in the most simplest terms possible, I'm going to tell you why James E's newest mix, Dicht is the best CD in the world.

Because the mixing is so fucking on. You don't have to love electro to agree. Just listen to it once and you'll be hooked on James Ellingson for life. Between the meshing of sounds, the perfection in timing and pulse and the precise cutting you'd think the man was a machine but it's the fact that he doesn't ever practice his mixes that you realize that he has the soul and instinct of a true musician, something that is so lacking in many of his peers. This is why he is the best DJ in Vancouver and how he could just about throw The Hacker off my vinyl pedestal.

You can get your hands on this gem of a CD at Tight Entertainment's new night, Dicht, debuting this Thursday at The Lotus (455 Abbott Street).