Dekmantel Mix Series Archive 1-500

Saharan artist @azu-tiwaline is inspired by the desire to explore her origins in the Tunisian desert. She did this to magnificent effect on Draw Me A Silence, a debut album released earlier in 2020 that unified traditional Amazigh music with contemporary dub cultures and hypnotic techno sounds. Defined by an ever-present polyrhythmic chiaroscuro - the contrast between light and dark - it's a mysterious album that gets you in a trance and encourages inward reflection. The same sense of intoxicating repetition and minimalism runs through this week's podcast. It is an often multi layered listen that has stringy, drawn out rhythms. What sounds like ancient ethic percussion and instrumentation mingles loosely with moody synth drones. Naturalistic field recordings - water, birds, vocal chants - enrich the mix next to trippy studio effects and make for something utterly beguiling. Somehow old yet new, surreal but earthy, these disparate worlds rarely collide in such harmonious ways.

@carrotgreen is very much a product of his Brazilian homeland. He makes and plays music that can place you deep into a freaky and humid jungle techno party, or transport you to a chilled out beach comedown. He played a masterful set of mellowness for us at our Sao Paulo festival way back in 2017 and by then he had already released a range of organic, deep and Latin flavoured house EPs. His latest release came in July on DJ Ground's Japanese Chill Mountain label and featured a pair of "murky late-night slow dub affairs," that get right under your skin. As this week's podcast proves, Carrot Green can pack all of those sounds and more into a one hour mix that will leave you breathless. It starts out with intoxicating and worldly ambient sounds but soon gets stuck into exotic house then slick and slamming techno. After working you into a frenzy with tight mixing and superb selections, he pulls back to mystic ancient dub sounds that leave you perfectly enchanted.

Italian-Dutch composer Aimée Portioli (@grandriver) is part of a new breed of artist who is meticulous in the way she sculpts and designs her sounds. Along with the likes of Donato Dozzy and Neel - who run the Spazio Disponibile label she debuted on in 2017, and returned to in 2018 with first album Pineapple - she imbues her deep rhythms with ambient beauty, classical minimalism and a real sense of symphony. She is a poly-instrumentalist who mixes tradition and formality with contemporary experimentalism, and also runs her own label One Instrument, releases on Ghostly and Longform Editions, and is an occasional A/V performer who is at home at the world's most avant garde clubs and festivals. This week, Grand River takes us on an ambient journey as meandering and meditative as her alias suggests. It's a study in absorbing sparsity, where beautiful drones are layered up next to rippling chords. Found sounds drift in and out of ear shot and delicate keys turn into vast walls of ominous sound. The whole mix is like a melting glacier, in constant but subtle motion that leaves you in an utterly different place from where you started.

One of @jossymitsu's skills is her versatility. She was born and raised in Birmingham before moving to London, so has been exposed to, and immersed in, a wide array of scenes. From jungle to 2step, techno to house, rave to leftfield, she has knowledge of it all and never fails to throw it down in electrifying style. Her Rinse FM radio show has proved that over the last few years, and earlier this year the 6 Figure Gang associate made her production debut on Astral Black's Frass FM compilation with the brilliantly bumping 'Whirl.' That track's cavernous bass and sparse late night atmosphere also characterises this week's mix. It's a selection filled with broken beats and metallic hits that lurch through desolate landscapes. As much as she can nail an absorbing atmosphere, Mitsu also knows just how to raise the levels by banging through flailing jungle, wild rave and blistering techno. But whether the hits are crisp and the kicks taught, swampy synths and low end wobble blast from the speakers or dark and dirty breaks bust out of the mix, this is pure body music that cannot fail to ignite your dancing spirit.

It was local word of mouth that elevated Australian @katemiller from local to international notoriety. Her ability to fluidly jump genres and eras always leaves dance floors in a spin, and after emerging in Melbourne she followed the music to Berlin when she eventually became resident at the Oscillate party at ://about blank. Those sets allowed her the freedom to explore and pick up a fan base, and now she is someone who tells long and winding stories, with selections and feelings that define her sets more than tempo or technicality. The 90 minute session Kate lays down for us is perfectly warm and rhythmic. It's united by rubbery kicks and deep, warm sub bass, but ever changing kick patterns and synths that range from absorbing and ambient to dark and paranoid always keep things moving. It is the sound of a DJ who is always in control, a masterclass in tension and release that means you're always on the edge, excited for what is to come. Tracklist: FFT - Forward Ulla - Leaves and Wish D. Tiffany - 4leaf DJ Sacom - Wisdom DJ Python - ooophi Toma Kami - Unreleased ITOA - Top Deck Spooky - J - Pfer YOUTH - Diamonds Facta - 4C Loop Cop Envy - Diving Board Mr. Mitch - Need More Fashion Friends SP:MC - Vintage Low End Activist - 19STR8BK Sepehr - Unfold Your Myth Kush Jones - Pre-Club Workout (feat. DJ Swisha & James Bangura) James Bangura - Broken Mind Jana Rush - Midline Shift DJ Fulltono - Melt into the Floor Raime - Ripli SNKLS - Isandula Flore - Uncoded Language FFT - Fask Toma Kami - Unreleased El Trick - Ko ko dak dak J. Majik - Hold You exael - Composure Kate Miller - Parker Street

GAIKA (@gaikasays) has been hailed as one of Britain’s most vital rappers. His confrontational music — and writing — is proudly Black, addressing as it does issues of the immigrant experience, gentrification and violence. It’s been called everything from gothic dance hall to industrial electronics for the way it distills Caribbean traditions and the contemporary sound of London, while he sees himself more of an afropunk with eyes very much on the future. Next to a full length and a number of EPs on Warp, this month he has collaborated with NAAFI affiliates on his new EP 'Seguridad' — which is out now —, while his collective The Spectacular Empire continues with its series of streams aimed at celebrating Black culture and raising money for Black causes. Over the course of an hour on this week’s mix, GAIKA serves up a positive musical selection. There are times when things get impossibly smooth, but pained passages often follow. It means one minute glossy r&b and purple funk fest you up, then gorgeous original instrumentals and sombre strings bring you back down. Complex and wide-ranging, it’s a mix that goes way beyond club functionality, instead managing to tell the sort of personal stories that real mixtapes should.

Talismann (@talismannrecords) is the techno alias of the Dutch house artist Makam. Under this name he makes dark, dubby, wormhole techno that is designed for dance floor meditation, and he exclusively serves it up on his own self titled label. The man behind the music stays in the shadows, and while his output is often heavy and doom laden, it is also alluring mysterious and atmospheric in a way that is never too oppressive. Today we're treated to a special mix filled with up-to-now unreleased tracks from Talismann's forthcoming, multi-part album 'Percussion'. Part 1 lands today on Bandcamp, however, with more to follow later in summer. Hearing all this material together in a mix, as the artist indeed, is a special treat which makes for a perfectly sequenced trip through empty industrial spaces, thronging warehouses and alien planets. It is hugely rhythmic, compelling techno, but is finished with a subtle sense of sound design that makes it as cerebral as it is physical. talismann.bandcamp.com/album/percussion-part1

Jamie 3:26 (@jamie3too6) has been a pivotal part of the Chicago scene for decades. Hailing from the South Side, he has been immersed in the city’s musical culture since day one, and not long after started to help shape it with his own expressive DJ sets and edits. Many of them made it into A Taste of Chicago on BBE, a compilation he put together of his own early takes on Windy City mainstays like Chip E, Jungle Wonz and Braxton Holmes back in March. Over the years, he has held various residencies in the city and soon went on to break out onto the international circuit, where he continually represents his hometown sound with real authority. Opening up with what sounds like a snippet from a pastor’s sermon, there is plenty of real life spirituality in this mix from the off. The ensuing two hours are a real lesson in groove and emotion, a panoply of house, funk, soul and disco that is loose limbed and expressive but also masterfully sequenced so as to tell a real story. It is a wonderfully widescreen representation of a city from someone who knows it as well as anyone, and one that will have you cutting loose and shifting shapes in no time.

@julianahuxtable continually crosses boundaries and breaks down borders. Her multidisciplinary art takes in writing, performing, poetry, DJing and running the Shock Value nightlife project in New York, where the Texan currently lives. She explores themes of history, the body, the internet and much more, often with a strong sense of personal identity. Next to solo exhibitions she has authored two books, worked as a Visiting Artists Program lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is involved with a number of collectives that challenge gender norms, interrogate notions of race and engage with socio-political issues and sexuality, often in visceral ways. This week's mix is just as direct and physical. It is a sound college filled with rage and confrontation, where brutalist industrial textures and squealing synths crash into banging techno. Human voices are mangled into walls of white noise and uncontrollable machines run riot in what could be a soundtrack to the end of the world, or the start of a new one.

Welsh singer, musician and producer Kelly Lee Owens (@kellyleeowens) has come a long way since her former life as a nurse. That was during her teens, before she went on to work in London's Pure Groove Records, play bass in shoegaze band History of Apple Pie and then link with Daniel Avery to provide vocals on his Drone Logic album. Those sessions had a big impact and served as the catalyst that fully converted Owens to techno. In 2017, her self titled debut album confirmed she was a vital new voice and picked up critical acclaim. Showcasing a bouncy, pop laced take on the genre, it was truly unique and will be followed up by new album Inner Song in August this year. Ahead of that comes a mix that plays with bendy bass and rubber kick drum patterns that can go from club ready one moment to more uncanny the next. Drones, resonant frequencies and a real grasp of empty space and absorbing atmosphere all define the journey, which means there is plenty of time to think, get drawn in and lost in sound.

@dannydaze has proven incredibly hard to pin down since he first emerged. After starting down a path that very quickly took him to the best clubs in the world but off the back of a sound that wasn't really his, he has managed to rewrite perceptions. After deciding to do things his own way, at his own pace, he is now known for what he really loves: techno, electro and IDM. Just recently he continued his collaborative work with Brazilian RHR on four dark, gritty and evocative cuts on OmniDisc, and has more music on the way soon on Schematic Records. This mix hints at what to expect from that EP, says Danny. "Due to the current conditions, I decided to go with chill zone session for this one mixed live with a bunch of the styles that influenced me over the last 20 years. Went a bit more trip-hop/IDM/electro with it which points to the direction the upcoming EP and album later in the year. Hope everyone has a nice week." So strap in for two freewheeling hours of interplanetary sonics, churning rhythms and otherworldly cinematics that will start your week right.

In the last couple of years, London's SHERELLE (@iamsherelle)has torn through the dance music world like a tornado. Everything she does is high speed and high impact, from what she mixes to the way she mixes it. Her dizzying mix of footwork, jungle and drum & bass has breathed new life into the 160bpm scene and got people all over Europe in a spin. As well as solo work, she plays as part of the 6 Figure Gang and runs the Hooversound Recordings label with Naina while also championing all things leftfield on her BBC Radio 1 residency. Of course, her 80 minute mix for us is pure fire, a bumping ride through thrilling kick patterns, shimmering toms and drilling bass. It's underpinned with a constant sense of tension that keeps you utterly on the edge of your seat and variously explodes into life, or pulls back to a moment of unsettling calm. It tells the story of a rich history of UK music, but with a fresh perspective that makes it all the more vital.

@garcon rightly considers himself an "expert in mood modulation." He is someone who carefully builds a groove, teasing with snippets, dropping in and out of tunes and drawing out the process of gratification and please. The Swiss man does it as resident at Elysia in Basel, often with a techno foundation but drawing on niches from all over the electronic spectrum. He co-runs the Amenthia Recordings label with Agonis and has said it takes its musical identity from the utilitarian space of his home club. This mix was recorded there last Friday, with CDJs and 1210s, but also a Space Echo that adds extra depth throughout. Starting in a cavernous industrial space from the off, the sound of sonic decay, eerie reverb and slow motion rhythmic automation all provide details that draw you ever deep into this industrial scene. As the drums become more prominent and the tempo hurries, the mood is no less unsettling and deserted. Broken techno, lurching bass and dark dub all feature in this most skilfully restrained yet highly impactful selection.

Robert Witschakowski-Jockel (@the-exaltics) has been a core part of electro's evolution since the late nineties. From early days bringing big names like Jeff Mills and Robert Hood to his hometown of Jena as a promoter, he soon elevated himself to become one of the best acid live acts in the game. Nowadays, he runs his own carefully-curated Solar One Music, has collaborated with Drexciya's Gerald Donald and released his own shadowy electro on Shipwrec, Clone West Coast Series and Crème Organization. He is a hugely prolific artist who is always tweaking and evolving his sound while staying true to his original sci-fi visions. All of that feeds into this week's mix, which is a bumpy, rough riding electro adventure that unfolds with a real sense of narrative. From the icy and high speed launch it quickly moves on to moments of smooth-cruising calm, guides you through solar storms and frantic acid work outs. The texture change, too, from ragged and frazzled to shiny and seductive, but are all stitched together seamlessly by a master of the form.

Planet Euphorique is the name of @d-tiffany’s label, but also a perfect summation of her sound: musically she reworks rave, euphoria, trance, electro, breakbeat and techno into all out emotional onslaughts that get hands in the air and chests swelling with joy. The Canadian - who also runs the xpq? label - has always got things done on her own terms, from running parties in her own house in Vancouver to making dance music with the gear she had previously used as part of a band via setting up her own women-focused Intersessions DJ school. This week she treats us to an extra special two hour selection that will take you to the heart of a rave in your front room. It’s a mix that bristles with life, from dusty and teary-eyed breakbeats that are shrouded in nostalgia to more clipped and kicking techno. The mixing is tight and urgent and after initially serving up plenty of lush moments of melody and IDM introspection, it grows all the more direct and unhinged later on.

New Yorker @acemo is an artist with an intense work rate. In the DJ booth he races through tunes, rhythms and styles with an insatiable sense of energy, and in the studio he is as prolific as they come. He has put out four EPs in the last year that take in jungle updates, battered techno and euphoric bass, and his self-released Existential album in late December came with a more thoughtful and philosophical dimension. This week's mix is a bumping one that hits the ground running. Impassioned and uplifting house soon gets you locked before you rough ride through dusty breakbeats, twisted acid and percussive work outs. Kinetic juke and footwork styles and more fist pumping, brain frying house are all touched upon throughout this most wide-ranging selection and breathless selection, so strap in!

Born and raised in Amsterdam and with his roots in Japan, Masalo (@masalo-music) is an artist who is firmly at the heart of the city’s music scene. He’s active in numerous ways, though his focus lies solidly on DJing and producing, in which he has been turning heads with his open minded approach that takes in music that brims with vitality. The Brighter Days party he runs with Kamma is famously colourful and friendly, like the man himself, and his choice productions have found their home on the Rush Hour label, the imprint he’s closely connected with. For this week’s mix he takes us on a two hour journey to a better place with an electrifying selection of organic dance jams, new wave, spiritual house and big hearted disco that will have you in a spin. The mixing is superbly tight given that the tunes jump around so freely from the old to the new, and it all adds up to a huge injection of escapist positivity that we all need in our lives right now.

@markknekelhuis is a world explorer who brings a love of live instrumentation to his dance music. The Knekelhuis label boss is a staunchly DIY operator who is also the voice of Volition Immanent, a live act along side Dekmantel regular Parrish Smith. He makes music that manages to be deeply personal but also immediate and arresting and that same style defines his radio shows on Red Light Radio. His mix for us is an exploration of deeply hypnotic sounds and dreamy breakbeats to slowly but surely wake you up right at the start of the week. Once you’re in the groove, there is space travelling electro and beautifully delicate melodic techno that continues to sooth your soul as you journey through the cosmos and off to a better place.

@roi_perez is at the beating heart of the queer dance music scene in Europe. His route to the top started with a residency back home in Tel Aviv, but since moving to Berlin 2013 he has gone on to make a wider impact with regular standout sets at fetish club Lab.Oratory and Berghain’s Panorama Bar. His focus is always on buying, playing and selling records rather than making them, so he is an adventurous DJ who is always evolving but is famed for his long, winding, eclectic sets that span multiple sounds and scenes. Even over the course of just an hour in the mix for us this week, he manages to travel far and wide. It's a party starting selection, for sure, with emotive breakbeats next to pumping percussive rhythms, steamy house and jacking acid. The rhythms are always raw and ragged, meaning Perez does a fine job of keeping you on the tips of your toes from start to finish.

rRoxymore’s music exists in the murky territory between house and techno. It is music you can dance to, but that never seems to be its primary intention. Shifting synth sequences bring rhythm, exotic percussion bring worldly feelings and her rugged and deconstructed drum machines bring inventive grooves. The Berlin based French artist herself calls it “mercy-less house” and has put most of it out on Don’t Be Afraid, including her Face to Phase album later last year, which was an album full of intriguing and exploratory sound scapes. In the past, rRoxymore has played percussion in a rock band, played hip hop and rare groove and soundtracked art installations, so she brings that widescreen understanding of groove to this week’s mix. It’s a leftfield selection of humid and tropical rhythms that dangle like vines in a jungle before morphing into broken and syncopated beats with a heavy low end. It’s compelling, stripped back rhythm music that seems to takes cues from UK funky, EBM, disco, techno and plenty more besides.

It is fair to say that Mark Fell is one of Rotherham's most acclaimed musical exports. His work is steeped in the industrial overtones that define the region in the North of England that also includes nearby cities like Sheffield and bands like Human League and Cabaret Voltaire. In particular, this sound artist and producer focusses on fusing together fragments of experimental, minimal music that has political overtones and unsettling, out-of-context atmospheres. He's released albums on Raster-Notion and Editions Mego, is one half of SND and performs at only the most avant-garde of clubs and festivals. This week he serves up some brilliant darkness and carefully deconstructed rhythms that will shake your bones and your brain cells loose. Artists that deal in soot-black synth, electro and post-punk sounds like Human League, Florian Hecker and Depeche Mode all appear, but there are also masterful sidesteps into hip hop, disco, pop from David Guetta, and words from William Burroughs. All these sounds take on hugely different moods and meanings when put together as part of Fell's unique lexicon, and make it a mix full of brilliantly unexpected moments.

France’s Emma DJ - not to be confused with Japan’s DJ Emma - had a hugely prolific 2019 that resulted in no fewer than three artist albums. The Paris-based Fusion Mes Couilles boss deals in abrasive textures and broken techno rhythms that chew up ambient, IDM, breakbeats and acid and spit them out in thrilling new forms. His year started with some debut shows in the USA, he also recently started his own show on France’s LYL Radio, and now keeps us entertained through the global lockdown with this week’s podcast. It starts with some paranoid, scene-setting ambience, sounds of factory automation and spoken words that are perfectly unsettling for these unprecedented times. When drums eventually appear, they’re slow and purposeful, there’s floating techno, visceral industrial and a flurry of breakbeats that are all run through with a real sense of dark mystery and otherworldliness. This is an intriguing mix that will keep you coming back for more.

Swedish born SPFDJ is a renegade spirit and ruthless DJ. She describes her own style as "trashy" and has said before that she disregards anything that might sound happy. To that end, she brashly bangs together techno, EBM, acid, industrial and trance in provocative and confrontational ways. She does so at her residency at Berlin's Herrensauna and also runs her own Intrepid Skin label, both of which are defined by big, banging kick drums. And so is this mix. 75 minutes of blistering textures, serrated synths and hammering drums that make for an impenetrable wall of ever evolving sound. As unrelentingly forceful as it is, monotony stays at bay thanks to the quick mixing and variation in mood, from marching and militant to acid and electric. Strap in, hold tight, and prepare for the ride of your life.

Sydney's club scene is thriving right now, and it is in no small part thanks to the likes of Adi Toohey. Her 360 degree approach takes in DJ sets, a long running radio show on FBi Radio, work behind the counter at The Record Store, and her own parties with the Rimbombo crew. All this has set her on an international trajectory that has seen her play as far afield as New York, Berlin and London. Her sound is accessible but high quality, with emotive house at the root of it all. Her mix for us makes no bones about that - it starts with some smooth and warm vocal grooves before a distinctive 90s flavour takes over. The mixing is tight and efficient, and breakbeats, progressive and big rave chords all colour in the bold, hands in the air grooves to make this a perfectly party starting set that wears its heart on its sleeve.

Nazira is a real powerhouse. She has almost single handedly built up an electronic music scene in her native Almaty in Kazakhstan. She runs her own ZVUK nights in a range of unique settings, was responsible for bringing a one off edition of Unsound to the region in 2017, and after word spread about her skills, she has gone on to represent around Europe while hosting workshops back home that aim to grow local talents. All this is even more impressive given how far removed her hometown is from the rest of the global circuit. As a DJ, host on Radio Cómeme and resident at Berlin’s Room 4 Resistance, Nazira brings physicality and angular rhythm to her work. For this week’s mix, she kicks off with skeletal bass and huge open spaces of futuristic ambiance before the jittery techno and industrial drum loops take over. Melodies rarely appear, instead the mood is dark, heads down, and focussed. It is the sound of an artist who is assured and uncompromising, which is a perfect reflection of the DJ behind it.

DJ Plead is a comparatively new alias for an artist who has been busy on the Melbourne scene for years. Jarred Beeler started as part of a DJ trio, then played in a percussive dance duo known as Poison, but as DJ Plead he has made most impact. Drawing on the Arab influences that come from being half Lebanese, he layers Middle Eastern percussion on top of lithe club rhythms and the results on labels like Nervous Horizon and DECISIONS are electrifying. This week's podcast proves he's also a master of threading together unhinged grooves and weird syncopations in the club. At times the drums are piled up so high and unevenly they feel like they're about to collapse in a heap around you, at others they're drawn out and deeper, sinking you into a hypnosis. Worldly drum sounds and intoxicating eastern melodies colour in the airwaves throughout, making this a series of glorious sonic collisions that up to one hell of a dance.

Eris Drew is one of those artists who seemed to blow up over night, but who had actually been hard at work for decades. A long-time residency at Chicago's Smart Bar brought her to international attention, and her own Motherbeat parties at various places around Europe furthered that reputation. It is there that she manages to cook up pure, unadulterated dance floor love and euphoria with hi-energy selections and a unifying sense of oneness that is put together with her own so called “orchestration” mixing techniques. An inquisitive musician and innovative recording artist, she has also just put out her debut solo EP on Interdimensional Transmissions and runs T4T LUV NRG with partner Octo Octa. This week's mix is all of the above and more: a throbbing, impulsive and full bodied experience that serves up the most bumping house grooves but run through with the warm ambient glow of a post-rave comedown. The music feels at classic but also thoroughly contemporary: it will make you pump your fist in sheer joy, but also sends warm waves of euphoria through your body. This is the sound of the Motherbeat. Eris on her mix: "In a recent interview for DJ Mag I talk about my connection to the song “Secrets of Mediation” by Dutch producers Alex Dijksterhuis (Jamez) & Gaston Steenkist (Dobre). At Chicago raves in 1994 and 1995, this track revealed to me that modern dance music contains archaic ritual elements such as trance-inducing resonances, penetrating sacred drums, and language transformed into glossolalia. My DJ mix for Dekmantel is inspired by my formative dance experiences and by the intense extended sets I play at psychedelic raves such as Motherbeat and No Way Back. The mix includes bass music, progressive, breaks, house, techno, and minimal, all of which I collage, drop and scratch to put us into a tunneling trance." Full tracklist here: dkmn.tl/270-ErisDrew

Mor Elian began DJing at parties even before she was strictly old enough. That was back home in Tel Aviv, and since then she has spent time in Berlin and Los Angeles. She now has also settled into her role as one of electro's most vital artists thanks to head-turning EPs on Delft and most often her own Fever AM, as well as recently minting Cinnaman's brand new Visible Spectrum with her Clairvoyant Frog EP. The strong independent spirit she has had since her youth led Mor to setting up LA-based party Into The Woods, and right now the music she makes and plays is just as singular as the artist herself. This mix proves that across 90 thrilling minutes which take in many different, futuristic blends of techno and electro. There's trippy sci-fi stuff for the afterparty, dark, strobe lit bangers for the peak of the night and deeper, more stripped back sounds to keep you in the zone. The tunes race by at high speed but also come stuffed with the sort of details that keep your mind in overdrive as you ride the rugged rhythms on the seat of your pants. Strap in.

American Phase Fatale is one of the residents responsible for defining the current Berghain sound. As well as regular DJ sets in the Berlin techno dungeon, his latest album, 'Scanning Backwards' — which was released on in-house label Ostgut Ton last month — was made with the cavernous club in mind. Just like his arresting DJ sets take influence from post punk, EBM and industrial, the album also looks outside techno's usual borders: snippets of speech, "brain-penetrating instrumentation" and plenty of raw textures all inform its grooves and make for a hugely visceral listen. On this week's mix, he serves up an uncompromising set of angular rhythms, doom laden synths and fizzing techno that is perfect for the darkest dance floors out there. Importantly, there are still nuances along the way despite the pumping machismo of it all. They keep you on the edge of your seat as the dystopian drama unfolds and all consuming bleakness draws you ever deeper into a world devoid of human life forms. It's beautiful brutality from start to finish.

It's impossible to talk about the sound of DjRUM without using the word cinematic. Whatever he does, it has a feeling of grand importance, widescreen elegance and moving emotion that elevates it way above a dance floor soundtrack. Throughout the course of his career, the UK artist has drawn on downtempo, blurred the lines between drum & bass and dubstep and always imbued his music with spoken words snippets, piano and chamber instruments. His Portrait With Firewood album was a real high-water mark in 2018, and last year his latest outing on R&S once again managed to draw on every aspect of electronic music and come up with something all his own. His mix for us this week is a perfect ethereal rave that finds plenty of beauty in the sparse rhythms he draws on from the worlds of garage, techno and drum & bass. There is a delicacy and elegance throughout, even when the beats hit hard and fast as they do at the overdriven and manic mid point. The amen breaks come thick and fast after that, but eventually melt away to propulsive ambient soundscapes that suspend you in time and space. Blissful.

Milos Kaiser is already confirmed for Dekmantel Selectors this August, and the São Paolo selector is exactly the sort of man you want to hear playing on a sunny beach. Over the past decade he has constantly excited people with his far ranging sets of rare and unknown gems. They represent every facet of Brazil's rich musical tapestry but always become dance floor heaters in his hands. He runs his own bar, Caracol, with friends, and is known for making his own edits of the tunes he plays. Over 70 minutes here he goes deep into a smorgasbord of synth sounds from tropical to pop, darker to more electro tinged. There are long legged and laid back grooves to get you slowly bumping, and more punchy tracks that get hands in the air and the good times flowing. All in all it makes for a joyous listen that is so warm and bright you will almost be able to feel the rays on your face and the sand between your toes.

It might well have been her set at Freerotation in summer 2018 that really got people talking about Gigsta. It was there that the hardcore heads in the crowd were all abuzz with her fresh mix of heavy bass, house funk, off kilter rhythms and kinked synths. Since then she has become more and more visible at key parties round Europe, not only as resident at Berlin's Room 4 Resistance but also through her painstakingly researched and assembled radio shows for Cashmere, where she takes cues from literature, NASA launches, spoken word pieces and plenty more. As the eagled-eyed will know, Gigsta has already been confirmed for Dekmantel Selectors in August, but to keep us going until then she has served up a special mix for us. You never know what you'll get with the Belgian artist, it could be hard and fast, could be grime, or could be garage. Here she goes for creepy and unsettling ambiance that eventually gets contorted into warped bass music, hyperactive club, hammering techno and euphoric jungle. It shows an unrivalled command of tempo and makes for a real seat-of-your pants ride.

Nene H has been hailed as one of techno's most strikingly singular artists. In the studio she mixes up her passion for folk and religious music as well as bruising club sounds with layers of spirituality, found sound and analogue aesthetics. Despite only first getting involved in the scene in 2015, she is already at home at places like Berlin Atonal, either playing live or laying down a DJ set, and also has a masters in piano. As a DJ she can often sound quite different to how she does in the studio: her mix here is hyperactive affair that will well and truly kick start your 2020 with brutal drum patterns and twisted electronics that take no prisoners. There's also distorted techno rap and malfunctioning club music tightly woven together in a light speed mix that somehow packs all this and more into just one hour.

Low Jack has been bringing an accessible experimentalism to club music throughout his career. The DJ and live act from France is a firm favourite on the digital arts festival circuit with a dark, tension filled and industrial tinged sound that has landed on L.I.E.S., Les Disques De La Bretagne and Trilogy Tapes and taken him to clubs like Berghain. Next to his techno he has also recently blended digital dub, dancehall and dubstep on newly self-released EPs that break all the rules and means he remains a fascinating auteur. His mix is the perfect way to awaken yourself from a post-festive slumber: its all bristling drums and rib rattling bass, crashing hits and broken beats that fire every synapse in your body. There are trap cuts, dark dancehall bombs and hyper speed jungle rhythms all somehow stitched together into a lively selection that covers a dizzyingly diverse spectrum of sound.

Norway's Prins Thomas is a giant of an artist whose influence looms large over the whole of the Scandi-scene. The space-disco king has a sound that draws on electro, krautrock, psychedelia and prog in melodically majestic ways and has given rise to a wealth of fully realised studio albums and classy dance floor singles, mostly on Smalltown Supersound. His latest record, 2019's Ambitions, is one of his best: it found him strip things back and reinvent himself once more over the course of plenty of gently absorbing grooves and mindful moods. As a DJ he is just as well equipped to take you on real dance floor odysseys built on ever present grooves, but coloured with melodies from the celestial realms. And that is the case on his 90 minute podcast for us, which journeys through frosty northern tundras as well as twinkling night skies with equal elan. The ups and downs along the way are subtle ones, but together they create something perfectly escapist and somehow very suited to this time of year.

Tutu is someone who people speak about with a real sense of reverence despite the fact she very much remains in the shadows of the scene. The reason? Her electrifying DJ sets, which are brilliantly experimental, brave and adventurous in the way they pay no attention to rules or traditions. The Spaniard born Gemma Planell plays anything from IDM to ambient, to grime, bass and plenty of hard to define sounds in between, all with a sense of precision and dexterity that few could match. After impressing at our festival as well as on Boiler Room, Red Light Radio and at Sonar, she now makes a much anticipated entry into our mix series. It starts in typically brazen fashion with a monologue about the power of silence and then, a passage of silence. A giant fog horn then gets things underway again and you're carried through ambient and neo-classical, experimental minimalism and hellish techno. Weird rhythms and odd sonic textures are constantly being served up into a brilliantly mind-bending whole.

Oceanic makes distinctly modern house and techno with attention grabbing synths and lithe sound design. The Dutchman's production is often quirky and curious and finds him bringing plenty of subtly inventive new ideas to his grooves. They have come on the likes of Nous'klaer Audio, while last year he put out a live recording of one of his many sets at Amsterdam's De School. It was an experimental ambient mix from the club's auditorium and this week he starts in a similar fashion before getting down to his more dance floor orientated sound. The mix races up to speeds of 150bpm, often with hyperactive drum programming and day glo synths lighting up the airwaves. The whole thing races by like a high speed hallucination, a trip to another dimension that somehow never sounds like house, or techno, or anything in between. It is genre-fluid, thrillingly unusual music littered with alien lifeforms and cyborg funk of the highest order.

Chicago born @Antenes is a Brooklyn based synth obsessive. She builds her own modulars and then sets them to the future to cook up rough edged warehouse tracks that are gritty and bleakly atmospheric, as well as more textured, detailed ambient work. She has done installations at Moogfest as well as playing as far afield as China, Colombia and Japan, and has appeared on LIES, Silent Season, Bunker NY and Mord. She DJs as well as playing live, has roots in goth and industrial as well as noise from her early years playing guitar, but also has a real love of techno, electro and experimental. Her darkly absorbing mix for us this week includes tracks from Electric Indigo, Stephanie Merchak, Fjader, Oisel, Rrose, Lonefront, DJ ESP, Erica Mar, Wata Igarashi, Silent Servant, Ewa Justka, Bergsonist and Uun. It reflects her interest in a healthy amount of ominous dance hypnagogia while also drawing from a large pool of influences from the experimental to her roots in the Midwest. “The ESP track in there has some weird filtering and panning with the crunchy drums for example,” she says, “I love hearing how raw it is”.

French born but Amsterdam based for almost 20 years, Kléo draws on her work as a visual artist when she's painting colourful musical landscapes in the DJ booth. She also takes the same approach when programming soul, jazz and boogie at Café Belgique. It is a homely space that suits her heartfelt sounds, while her Red Light Radio show has become synonymous with music that is just as sensitive. After appearances at both Lentekabinet and Dekmantel Festival before now, she finally brings her bright and beautiful approach to our mix series. Over the course of two hours she delves deep into lots of cuddly strains of house music from deep and jazzy to romantic, melodic and late night. Her tender touch draws you in close and keeps you there with lots of warm chords, pillowy pads and plenty of love struck grooves. This is one perfectly suited to long winter nights and snuggling up with close friends.

Many people have an NTS show, but few are as closely attached to the London station as much as DEBONAIR. A key part of the team in its initial days, she has not only become a much loved host, but as Programme Director in the station's first year she helped to make the station the vital and vibrant cultural hub that it is. She is an adventurous DJ who rides rough punk basslines, gnarly electro and EBM as well as various party starting house and techno styles. That ability has taken her to headline sets at cult clubs like De School, DC10 and Panorama Bar and now our podcast series. It's a mix that very much does its own thing and starts off on a high energy tip with plenty of punchy drums and flailing synths making you immediately cut loose. Things only grow more intense from there with as DEBONAIR explores techno and electro from many different angles - angry and coarse, spaced out and deep, thumping and futurist. This is the sound of a DJ in full flow, going with her instincts and very much keeping you on the edge of your seat and guessing at what might come next.

Last month, the Parisian duo of Guido Minisky and Hervé Carvalh aka Acid Arab took us on another absorbing musical tour with their latest album Jdid on Crammed Discs. Typically widescreen in influences, it is a real melting pot of sounds, melodies, percussion, strings and vocals from all across eastern music that bring new character to tried and tested house and techno rhythms. The Acid Arab sound is a daring collision of worlds but one this pair have managed to pull off better than anyone. And that is the case on their far-flung mix for us: it's an colourful one that takes you from a bustling African market one moment to a dirty warehouse the next and on to dusty dunes and expansive river banks, all with a sense of cohesion that somehow makes complete sense. The tempos remain slow and unhurried, but the mix itself is always on the move.

Plaid's techno is some of the most thoughtful out there, and the way the British pair deliver it is often just as interesting. Take Ed Handley and Andy Turner's latest album, Polymer, which came with its own interactive web environment and encouraged us to think about the role artificial substances play in our lives. Musically it was a harder-edged mix of broken techno and heavy snares, but still offered the sort of technicality and emotion that has always stood the Warp duo apart. In their mix for us they put all their many years of know-how into a timeless selection of tense and engaging electronic sounds. It touches on far-gazing and futuristic techno, melancholic ambient passages and onto scintillatingly melodic IDM and twisted jungle. It's a real rollercoaster from two jedis of the scene.

One of the many highlights of this year's Lente Kabinet was a radiant set from Barbara Boeing. It brimmed with music from her homeland of Brazil and spanned everything from funk to synth, pop to soul. After many years building up her digital archives, it was only a couple years ago that Boeing decided to start collecting vinyl in order to open up new musical worlds and challenge herself as a DJ. By now she is skilled at bringing together disparate and sometimes almost un-mixable sounds into one absorbing tapestry, and can often be found doing so at the Alter Disco night she runs in Curitiba with best friend Phil Mill. Coming off the back of her recent European tour she has put together a mix of superbly easy listening South American sounds from the worlds of AOR, pop, soul and tropicalia. Slowly working its way through the gears, the lively percussion gradually makes way for more propulsive house style drums that pump the dance floor with distinctly Latin overtones. It's a classy and uplifting way to start your week.

re:ni's secret weapon is the way she plays with rhythm with such ease. Whether banging 130bpm club tracks or nailing down slick UK techno, keeping it deep with 100bpm rollers freaking you out with acid she is a devilishly dexterous DJ. Because of this she has become an NTS regular, firm favourite at places like De School and Dimensions and counts Timedance boss Batu and the Livity Sound crew as fans. In the mix for us she serves up all sorts of futurist beats that are wired up with electronics or stripped back to more haunting and hypnotic sound worlds. Reni's ability to manipulate rhythm and texture, time and space is utterly thrilling and finds her go from slowed down dub to high octane minimalism and on to jungle with ease over the course of this slick 90 minute selection.

Cleveland bridges many different musical divides. He is a DJ, producer and party promoter from Luxembourg but based in Brussels, and in all those disciplines likes to focus more on mood and texture than specific genres. He has a sound that is thought provoking and complex but never too academic, and has explored the deeper, more synth heavy end of the dance spectrum onlabels like Hivern Discs, WHITE and ESP Institute. Across ninety minutes here he offers up lovably loose grooves that range from musical and lavish to more heads down and propulsive. Tripped out house bleeds into twisted techno and floating ambient laced grooves drift next to minimal classics, all in the sort of story telling fashion that also defines his excellent shows on Red Light Radio. Heady yet engaging, Cleveland's sound is very much deserving of your attention.

Aquarian makes and plays music that feels familiar but is hard to pin down. His take on techno, jungle, rave and bass is alien and unique, a blend of the Berlin, London and Detroit sounds we all know and love, but with a little something extra injected into it to give it a mutant sense of funk. The Canadian is now based in Germany and has released on Quiet Time Tapes as well as his own Hanger Management. His mix is a devastating study in rhythm, contorted drum programming and warped bass that is stripped back to its bare essentials but that is constantly on the move and keeping you guessing. It starts off twisted and tightly coiled, complex and involving, but slowly loosens up and heads straight forward in thrilling fashion. Electro, ghetto, IDM, drum & bass and more all get chawed up and spat out in ways that only Aquarian can.

To pick up five Grammy award nominations means you're pretty special, and American composer, electronic pioneer and neo-classical recording artist Suzanne Ciani is just that. In her early days she got pure magic out of the brand new Buchla synth that immediately set her apart and earned her the title of "America's first female synth hero". With a wealth of studio and live albums under her belt and new - as well as old but previously unreleased - ones coming as regularly as ever, she continues to be a pioneer more than forty years after first emerging. Ciani describes this mix less than one of her live sets and more like something for "a social gathering of friends and acquaintances for lunch or dinner." It draws on music from friends she admires and has worked with after meeting on tour around the world and kicks off with her latest archival release on Finders Keepers. The last track is "an old perennial favourite that still makes me cry a bit" and in between is an hour of glistening electronics, suspensory ambient and contemporary piano and percussion that lift your spirits in that way that beautiful music so often does.

Nummer's music is characterised by a passion for obscurity and authenticity. This characterises the records the French pair endlessly dig for, as well as the studio full of custom built and second hand pieces of hardware they collect. When used to make their own music, the results range from ambient soundscapes to jacking dance floor bangers via electro futurism. It comes on their Nummer Music as well as Going Good with slick stylistic variations that also define this mix for us. The live and DJ duo create a loose and gangly groove early on here and keep it up over the course of an infectious 80 minutes. There's flabby slow motion techno, wiggling electro funk and cosmic acid call upon along the way. What ties everything together so neatly are the atmospheres around the tracks, which are never less than mysterious and inquisitive, so buckle up and enjoy the trip.

Bulgarian born, Helsinki based Katerina has a unique take on rhythm and favours unusual moods in her music. That made her a perfect artist for the always left of centre Cómeme label, where she debuted late last year with a EP of improvised melody, post-industrial beats and lo-fi samples that swelled with fascinating ideas and emotions. In the club, she is unashamedly influenced by DJ Quik but brings her own psychedelic flavours and feelings to anything from techno too electro to punk. Initially here she takes a more bucolic approach with 20 minutes of genteel ambiance that is eventually consumed by a deep rooted minimal rhythm. The mix stays decidedly delicate and tender in the mid section, with astral pads and muted drums keep you in a state of dreamy hypnosis before getting more dark and unhinged thanks to rugged acid lines, lo-fi techno and a euphoric breakbeat closer that completes this most perfect paced and journeying mix.

London based, B. Traits is one of the most visible women in dance music who continues to champion underground sounds to cross over crowds. From intimate clubs to festivals and soon a guided meditation event in EartH, Dalston she follows an unpredictable path. It’s the same story with the mix she has put together for us this week. It’s a high energy selection which touches on every style of techno and never loses momentum. The tracks are busy, urgent affairs that are big enough to make their mark on a festival crowd but detailed enough to work in a more intimate club setting. That careful balancing between the two is what makes B. Traits so special.