The DJ mix CD is a format in need of a boost. With the exception of the hip-hop mixtape scene, which has gotten a big boost from internet sales and hype, much of this already niche market has dried up as people turn to DJ mix websites like Blentwell rather than waiting for some record company to jump through the hoops of licensing all the songs and manufacturing commercial product.

That said, a few labels are still really on the ball, including EMERGE favorites like Fabric and now Faith Recordings, which has unleashed the new Collector's Series mixes on an unsuspecting public.

As recently noted on The Fader's blog, the Collector's Series is a project overseen by Stefan Struever, who was the A&R man resonsible for much of the legendary and massively influential DJ Kicks series from !K7 Records. Into it's second iteration, the Collector's Series seeks to showcase some of today's most slept on turntable talents spinning the sorts of music that too often goes under the radar of even the most dedicated dancefloor denizens. These are a far cry from that Jock Jams cd you've been bumping in your Iroc Z for the past decade.

The first CD is selected and mixed by minimal techno producer The Modernist, who uses extensive studio trickery to fuse and mash up songs into a really fascinating exploration of minimalist techno pop. From techno classics like "1 2 3 No Gravity" by Closer Musik to the Mitsubishi ad-approved "Breathe" by Telepopmusik and even the classic "The Boom Boom Bap" by the falsetto-voiced Scritti Politti, Pt 1: Popular Songs is a far cry from what most people believe to be what techno music is all about.

The second disc switches lanes, bringing in acclaimed German DJ and producer Kaos, who has been a fixture on the Berlin scene for two decades as a pioneer of Germany's grafitti art scene, a member of chart topping trip hop trip Terranova, and later as a disco-obsessed solo artist . For Pt 2: Danse, Gravite Zero, Kaos teams up with vocalist and percussion maestro Sal Principato of the seminal no wave disco group Liquid Liquid for an expansive look at the "Cosmic Disco" sound that dominated forward-looking clubs in Northern Italy and much of Europe in the early 1980s. Ranging from the emotional "I Need Somebody To Love" by Sylvester to "Hot On the Heels Of Love" by proto-industrial act Throbbing Gristle and the oddball disco of Arthur Russell's "The Platform On The Ocean," this mix is an eye-opener for anyone who thought disco begins and ends with Saturday Night Fever.

Adding to the excitement surrounding the series, EMERGE endorsed designer Laurent Fetis has been brought in to handle graphics duties. Simple color palettes and an unusual inversion of design priorities (the tracklisting is on the cover, the artwork on the reverse) make for cool, serialized set of graphics that recall Fetis' earlier work for Air and Beck without treading creative water.

Thanks to some savvy marketing work, 100 or so lucky collectors will get limited edition copies of Pt 2: Danse, Gravite Zero in a Nike-produced bag containing the CD, vinyl singles of some of the songs featured and a pair of custom-designed Air Max sneakers bearing the names Sal P and Kaos embroidered on the heels. Look for a pair helping to keep EMERGE on his feet...

It appears you don't have Flash installed.