If you have any interest in DJ culture, you'll find Battle of the Megamixes to be a fascinating exercise in musical taste and manual dexterity, with entrants compressing as much turntable flair and as many mixes as possible into pressure-packed 10-minute bursts of creativity. The tight time frame prompts jocks—who've had a month to work on their routines—to maximize excitement and ratchet up their showmanship to peak levels. Which makes BOTMM run like a highlight reel of sounds and surprising juxtapositions—often with props.

This year's battle features WD4D, Miss Shelrawka, Greg Skidmore, DJ Verse, Jimni Cricket, Kadeejah Streets, Rob Noble, and xben. This year's competition will accept multiple DJ formats, including most digital applications, a move dictated by sponsor Rane that will surely anger vinyl purists.

One such wax enthusiast, DJ Introcut, will be judging the contest. He says that he's "looking for smooth mixes, scratching/turntablism, creative track selection, mixing different genres, crowd reactions, the number of tracks played in a set, vinyl, and, most important, the DJs' style."

Last year's BOTMM champ, Kristina Childs, is also judging this time. She notes: "Anyone can mix 10 minutes of the same bpm, but you gotta show me you can smoothly flow the gamut: hiphop, new wave, drum 'n' bass, house, Top 40. I'll be looking for creativity and range, as well as technical mixing skills."

"I'm going to focus on technicalities, originality, and the DJs' ability to hype the crowd," adds fellow judge Dave Pezzner. "A good DJ can mix songs and make people dance—but an amazing DJ has something new to bring to the table and should blow us away. The audience should have their fists in the air, and I should be on the edge of my seat. This is what I want to see from the winner."

Said winner will go home with a new Rane mixer. You will go home with a mad mélange of music and deck tricks running through your mind. The event's promoters, Knightriders, are even giving you a shot to scratch your way to notoriety by opening up the turntables from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. to all comers.

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Seattle's Crystal Hell Pool (aka Chris Majerus) creates beatless music that eludes the usual trappings of new age mollification and dark ambient's default horror-flick-score tropes—a very difficult feat to achieve. On his Incantation to Nothingness CD, Crystal Hell Pool delves deeply into the sonic abyss, as the title hints, and dredges up murkily luminous tones that intrigue through barely perceptible gradations in emphasis. Check out Crystal Hell Pool's infinitely interesting infinitesimal music at www.virb.com/crystalhellpool.

BOTMM, featuring showcase sets by M'Chateau and Travis Baron, happens Fri Jan 22, Chop Suey, 8 pm, $10 before 11 pm/$13 after, 21+; Crystal Hell Pool performs Fri Jan 22, Henry Art Gallery, 7 pm, $8/$10, all ages.