Check out our pics as Heidi, Chuckie and Judge Jules head to the 'Dam for some hard dance music and some rather tasty food!

I’m really excited to part of ‘Radio 1 Goes Dutch’. It’s a big compliment to my country that the BBC is dedicating a whole night to our music!

I’ve put together a special mix of music that has influenced me as a DJ and producer. The mix represents the different eras and styles of Dutch dance music that have had the biggest effect on me. Most of the tracks are by Dutch artists but I also included producers from outside the Netherlands that had a big influence on the Dutch sound.

To start the show, I picked out tracks from the early nineties raves. Artists like The Good Men, Speedy J, Lemon 8 and Green Velvet who brought the Chicago bleepiness to the Netherlands.

Next I went into trance with tunes like ‘Out Of The Blue’ by Ferry Corsten and Tiesto’s ‘Flight 643’. This was the first time that Dutch artists made their name overseas. And I still love those epic chords and trancey synths!

I play a few tunes from around 2000/2001 when the Dutch started to get a bit funky. Check out DJ Roog aka Hardsoul.I also play some tracks that show how our sound has been influenced by hip hop and R&B. None more so than DJ Chuckie who helped bring dance music to the masses when he switched from playing hip-hop to house.

Another big influence on the Dutch sound are the tribal beats of the Suriname community.Suriname is a former Dutch colony in South America. And you can hear those tribal roots in tracks by Gregor Salto and Bingo Players.

Another big influence on our music is Switch from the UK. I remember one point a few years ago where every Dutch producer was trying to copy his style!

Towards the end of the show I start to introduce a new breed of Dutch masters. I’m really excited by producers like Munchi and TWR72.

And I end the show with the Dutch sound as it is right now, with music from Afrojack, our Swedish Mafia cousins, and yours truly!

I hope you enjoy the show as much as I enjoyed putting it together! It was great fun going through my old tunes.

PS: You can download a free mini mix of the show on Annie Mac's mini mix page from tonight!

Having the opportunity to record an essential mix is a massive deal for us, for any dj it's about as big of an opportunity as they come to be creative with your art and to reach so many people at once. the project wasn't taken lightly at all as it can be quite a task to put something like this together. you're considering the fans you already have, the people who don't know your work, trying to convey everything you want to say within the allotted 2 hours and with 30 of the 10,000 songs you have to chose from, as well as building trust with the listener early on so that you have more freedom with your programming as the mix continues. We wanted to make it as special and interesting as possible, and keep a classic vibe about it so that people will hopefully want to listen to it for years to come, same as we have with the likes of Blackstrobe's Essential mix from 2004. The mix is filled with current and classic music from artists we love and close friends ranging from deep & hypnotic grooves to vocal house records, to electronica and back, with loads of edits made just for this mix.