Dekmantel Mix Series Archive 1-500

Australian Lauren Hansom has the sort of expansive and immersive sound that makes her a perfect fit for a range of settings. She’s proven this with radio shows on Red Light Radio, NTS and Worldwide FM, as well as DJ sets everywhere from Lente Kabinet to Gottwood Festival via plenty of key European clubs. As an avid vinyl collector she delves deep into unknown corners of jazz, soft pop, acid, Balearic, you name it, and stitches everything together with seamless style. On this week’s mix, Hansom plots a global journey through sound that serves as a perfectly tropical and exotic post—summer comedown. After starting with new age bliss and clean synth tracks, the drums take on many forms from acid to electro to garage, all with a curious future-retro feel and wide range of cultural and musical references.

Antigone is a key player on the Parisian scene who has helped to bring techno back into focus. He did it with his residency at Concrete, but also his releases on labels like Token, Dement3d and Soma. Whether raw and rugged, melancholic and melodic or more tracery and big room in style, he has an always interesting and complex style that stands him out from the pack. In the DJ booth he is focussed on detail and texture and shows that here: after a subtle atmospheric start that sinks you into deep, cavernous rhythms, the ride grows much more ragged. Jittering electro, astral techno and supple breakbeats all get carefully threaded together into a tight but adventurous hour that exudes a real sense of style.

Istanbul born Debora Ipekel has been slowly but surely bubbling up on the London scene for a few years. She is an NTS and Worldwide FM host who digs deep during sets at cultured spots like Brilliant Corners, and also runs her Zel Zele Records. Mixing up anything from trippy fusion, Turkish folk and psych, jazz-funk or kraut, she plots worldly wonders and cosmic trips that are richly rewarding. The label is just as adventurous and far out, and reaches as far back into the past as it looks to the future. Ahead of her playing for us at Dekmantel Selectors, Debora invites us into her world with a 100 minute mix that deals in exotic, tropical grooves and traditional instrumentation. It’s funk, jazz and soul music that comes from a different, more psychedelic perspective than the norm, but is still drenched in so much sun and warmth it makes you feel like you’ve arrived on our little Croatian beach a few weeks early.

The last few years have seen Volvox rightfully come of age on the international scene. The self-styled “techno disciple” has been shaping and driving the Brooklyn underground ever since moving to NYC from Boston in 2011, but has been hosting events and laying down tough sets for more than a decade. A couple of residencies in that time have seen her push both an acid house sound and a harder techno outlook while she is now at home everywhere from De School to Berghain. In this searing 80 minute selection, Volvox tears through a range of electro sounds that race along with a high speed funk. Form punchy bass driven jams to visceral industrial and on to a sci-fi future, it’s a brilliantly widescreen but cohesive overview of a genre that is made for dancing.

CEM’s unique DJ style has been referred to as “emotive hysteria” and that couldn’t be more apt. He plays in highly intense and energetic ways, lacing together frenzied and frantic techno with a UK edge. A core resident at Berlin’s cult Herrensauna party at Tresor, he draws on his punk upbringing back in Vienna to cook up the sort of electrifying soundtracks that have become vital to the queer community. This mix is a perfect showcase of his race style: it’s just over an hour of blistering and always futuristic techno that never relents. Subtle diversions into broken beat, rave and jungle keep you on your toes and always locked in for what is the most thrilling of rides. It’s hard to play as intensely yet captivatingly as this, but CEM does it better than anyone.

Proud Brooklynite Adam X is one of the most pivotal figures in techno. As a founding father of the US rave scene with his brother Frankie Bones, he played hard and fast in the early years before losing himself in industrial. Having very much driven the revival of interest in that style, he remains at the sharp edge of the scene from his current home in Berlin, where he continues to turn out raw and visceral sounds on his Sonic Groove label. To read in depth about his backstory, check out the recent feature we did with Adam while you dive into his podcast on www.dekmantel.com. It is a timeless two hour selection that covers deeper techno as well as the sheet metal synths and hammering beats Adam is known for. Strobe lit, sweaty and grimy, it oozes the sort of realness that has always separated him from the crowd.

Austrian music obsessive Heap is someone who always digs deep into the past, but also the present. His empire includes Discus Throwers, which is a concept store that deals in special gems from the world of house, techno, synth pop and kraut, as well as his Neubau label, productions on labels like ESP Institute and Berceuse Heroique and DJ sets that can be brave and beguiling or banging and brash. For this week’s mix, Heap keeps it deep with a selection of leggy and gently cosmic disco tracks early on. His is a thoughtful take on the genre, with expansive tracks that could be brand new or 30 years old all sitting nearly next to each other. As things grower darker and more intense later on, elements of acid, electro and proto-house all make for a colourful and late night trip.

Galaxian is an arresting artist who blurs the lines between many different sounds and scenes. A militant style in the booth is matched by his helmet-wearing on stage persona: he gobbles up and spits out anything from industrial to electro, EBM to synth with an impossible amount of energy and improvisation. His dark drum programming and synth eruptions soundtrack cyber attacks that are utterly visceral and unorthodox and ah hour in his presence will leave you feeling exhausted he packs so much in. This week we have a live recording from his gig at Concrete in Paris from December last year. It’s a blistering trip through his world, a flurry of ideas, textures and genres that sound as if they are fired from a machine gun. It will get you up on your toes and keep you there, leaving you wide eyed and ready for action no matter what time of day you listen to it.

The attention the Amsterdam scene currently enjoys is, in no small part, down to the tireless work of Sandrien. She’s been there since the nineties, with residences at Trouw and now De School, close ties to Rush Hour and also through her own parties, which have been bringing the likes of DJ Nobu and Blawan to the city for years. Her uncompromising techno style has taken her around the world and to labels like Ben Sims’ Theory, amongst others. In short, she is a living local legend. Sandrien takes a long view on this mix, starting with an escapist ambient selection that gets your attention. It transports you to a different world before the DJ puts her foot down and brings the grooves. Things remain decidedly cinematic and intergalactic over the course of the next hour, with various shades of deep techno eventually ending up in a place of ambient beauty not far from where you started. It’s a rounded mix that begs to be played over and over.

The Netherlands has been an incredibly fertile breeding ground for electronic music in recent years, and Identified Patient is the latest fascinating artist to emerge. For that reason we snapped him up for a debut on our UFO series just this month: his Signals In Snakes EP is four tracks of beguiling acid, darkwave and industrial electronics that exist in their own weird universe and come after a breakout Boiler Room show and plenty of well regarded sets at De School in Amsterdam. Always exploring new rhythms and tempos, he continues to do so with a fine entry into our mix series. He really shows the breadth of his range here across a nearly two hour mix that starts like a soundtrack. It depicts cosmic landscapes, indigenous tribes and alien worlds through a series of sludgy rhythms and futuristic dub chuggers before more propulsive drums take you to the club. Identified Patient never hurries his work but is always moving you along, with spacious and eerie tracks, breakbeat bangers and deep minimalism all included along the way in a mix that is brilliantly evocative and otherworldly.

Deena Abdelwahed has a two way relationship with music: in her early years back home in Tunisia when she programmed nights at Nüba, she was known for introducing the likes of footwork, UK bass and kuduro along side experimental house and techno to the local scene. Meanwhile, her own music on labels like InFine has introduced European audiences to bass and techno with plenty of fascinating Arab influences. This was best showcased on her Khonnar album late last year, which came with plenty of inventive rhythms, weird sound designs and generally challenging musical ideas. Abdelwahed’s mix for us comes ahead of her performance at Dekmantel Festival in August and showcases her ability to twist basslines and layer in spiritual ambiance to absorbing effect. It manages to be punchy and physical yet thoughtful throughout, and also comes with plenty of the Arab influences - vocals, instrumentation, rhythms - that make her work so standout.

Just last month, Canadian Jex Opolis debuted on our label with a cosmic and feel good electro EP that came washed in Italo influences. It was the latest in a long line of colourful releases—largely on his own Good Timin’ label—that have explored a timeless mix of synth pop, leftfield, house and nu disco since 2013. As someone with a background playing in bands, he knows how to properly arrange a track, which always shows, and he even uses his own voice for extra layers of personalisation. His mix for us is a fun one: vocals ricochet around over boogie basslines, tropical percussions flails away next to glistening Casio keys and day-glo disco is never far away. House grooves take over later on and power through with more lush chords and it all makes for exactly the sort of thing you want to hear on an open-air, sun-kissed festival stage.

French trio J-Zbel keeps it low key. The unknown collective from Lyon has released exclusively on Brothers From Different Mothers since 2015, and in May this year offered up a fantastic debut album. The oddly titled Dog's Fart Is So Bad The Cat Throws Up was an eclectic double 12” mash up of rave, hardcore, breakbeats, acid and techno that is full throttle and uncompromisingly high energy. With little else to go on but for their music, it’s fair to say J-Zbel enjoy the sweat and intensity of the dance floor and are not afraid to take musical cues from outlier scenes like trance and gabber. That lends their music a thrilling and unpredictable edge that also permeates this podcast: it’s 1 hour 40 minutes of tempo hopping, mood switching sounds that are have your hands pumping to rave one minute and your body skanking to some abstract future grime the next. It’s a refreshing and widescreen take on strobe lit styes that hits like a train.

Iranian born Mozhgan has a love of dark and ghoulish sounds that always play out when she’s on the decks. In 2011, she started her own We Are Monsters party in San Francisco and it very much went against the grain, mostly thanks to her own definitive sets which draw on 80s synths and vintage hardware as well as exotic and ethnic rhythms, cold wave sounds and industrial textures. Since then she has established herself on the global circuit with sets at cult places like Burning Man and Panorama Bar. She will join us at Dekmantel Festival later this summer and tastes us with what to expect with this new mix. It’s a rugged and low slung affair with jerking body music and frosted synths making for an alien vibe throughout. While often abstract and desolate, there are moments of sci-fi beauty and heady depths along the way that make this mix a cinematic experience from start to finish.

Territroy is a coming together of long time techno innovator Stathis Kalatzis and Panagiotis Melidis, who is best known as Larry Gus from his work on DFA. This new collaboration explores the similarities and differences between the two distinctive artists: the club focussed drums and physicality of the former, and the meticulous song craft and chord structure of the latter. It has resulted in a brand new album, Skulls & Plants—due in June on our own UFO label—that explores rugged rhythm, dark internal spaces and twisted synth work that is a full of beautiful contrasts. That distinctive duality and sense of split personality is clear to see in the mix they have put together for us. And few in the series have started as wildly, with freeform jazz expressionism bursting out of the speakers before dying away to reveal a loose and tropical rhythm littered with percussion and hand drums. Looseness and, frankly, weirdness, characterises the next couple of hours as psyched-out synths and manic drumming, computer meltdowns and more radical jazz stylings all intertwine with each other in truly beguiling fashion. If you like your music to be challenging and rule breaking, this is the one for you.

Today we’re all super hyped for for Lente Kabinet this weekend so to get us even more excited we’ve got Job Jobse making his entry to the series. He will play a closing set at the festival and as resident at De School is a master for serving up the perfect record at the perfect time. Initially a slow burner, he’s long been loved by Amsterdam locals for his richly melodic take on house, techno, Italo and disco, and himself is happy to call it trance. It’s certainly a spell being and emotional style that characterises his work here. With something of an old school slant, there are stiff vocal cuts and robotic grooves that slowly loosen up and turn to more hands in the air and zoned out fair before getting more sci-fi and occult later on. As ever with Jobse, it’s feel good and fun without being obvious.

After a few years bubbling under, Cera Khin could well be about to breakthrough. And few deserve it more than the Tunisian born, Berlin based artist as she is busy on many different fronts, from hosting radio shows on NTS and Noods to running her own LazyTapes label. It has put out music she has made with Ossia as well as solo 12”s from Peder Mannerfelt, but her has not as yet showcased the full breadth of her tastes which range from Afro to Egyptian grooves, grime, rave and ambient. This mix is just as wild and full on from the off, but more directly focussed on the dance floor. High energy techno ranges from mutant to acid to hardcore, with corrugated ghetto funk and euphoric rave all mix in with tight and technical skills. It’s a blistering introducing to how Khin sounds in the club and is a great way to kick start your week.

There is an effectiveness and simplicity to Mall Grab’s house music that very quickly made him a star. The artist from an Australian town makes tracks as dusty as homeland, but imbued with feel good melodies, irresistible drums and smart samples that elevated them above pure tools. This raw, instinctive, unfussy sound has found him on labels like Looking For Trouble as well as the Steel City Discs label he runs with Jarred Kennedy and Jackson Fitzsimmons. Back in February he stepped out with an EP under his own name in a mission of “self-discovery” and it’s a journey the world continues to be closely tuned in to. His mix is a high octane selection of brilliantly physical sounds. From supersized house to throwback breakbeats, he slams it all together with a fist pumping efficiency that means two hours race by in a flash. It’s a fun mix, too, with old school rave flavours, saw tooth stabs and bumping kicks all brimming with the sort of life that makes Mall Grab such an appealing and accessible talent.

Kampire has been bringing the authentic sound of East Africa to Europe for a few years now. She was born in Uganda and raised in Zambia but paints a weird and wonderful musical picture that draws on Congolese rhythms, tropical bass and Afro-pop. Outside of music this core member of Uganda’s Nyege Nyege collective is a writer and activist who is fighting marginalisation and oppression and has an infectious energy that carries over onto stage as she platforms various underrepresented sounds, scenes and artists. Her punch one hour mix is a succinct snapshot of her sound. It takes us direct to her African heartland through a series poly-rhythmic beats and tumbling basslines that cannot fail to get you pump up and wiggling your behind. From restlessly energetic tracks to sun-kissed township sounds via hyper-driven futurism it’s a white knuckle ride that will have you on the edge of your seat.

Nu Guinea came together over a love of studio jam sessions. The Berlin based Italians fuse live instrumentals and synthesisers that journey to far corners fo the musical world, from weird disco to exotica, world grooves via ethno rhythms. Their most adventurous work has come in the form of albums on their own NG Records as well as Early Sounds Recordings, one of which found them rewire original Tony Allen drum recordings with their own jazz-funk vibes. In the mix for us this week they stir up a steamy summer session of boogie bass, township funk and squelchy synth goodness. It’s 90 minutes of storytelling music that speaks of a lifetime of digging deep into local sounds and scenes and stitching them all together with the sort of underlying grooves that transcend boundaries and bring people together under the sun.

OKO DJ is a core member of a few key collectives: the first is the Brothers From Different Mothers label she has been signed to, and the second is LYL Radio, where she heads up the Paris department and hosts the monthly Synchronisme ou Barberie with the Bruits de la Passion crew, as well as her own women-only show Pu$$y Nightmare. She is utterly diverse in the music she plays, which ranges from doom laden psych to 80s synth to cold body music via futuristic soundscapes. Mixing with a focus on vibe and feeling rather than scene or style, she is freed up to go wherever the music takes her. And so it is that her mix starts with an energised spoken word monologue then transitions to experimental beats, spooky synth tracks and jungle all within the first fifteen minutes. Dark and foreboding passages are often offset by more exotic moments of calming ambiance and for every frazzled synth and blizzard of drums there is a restorative dub moment to reset the mood. Such a series of highs and lows, darks and lights is not often found in the same set, and what’s what sets OKO DJ apart.

A true student of world music, specifically scenes across West Africa, Auntie Flo’s music is an always authentic distillation of afro drums and rhythms. His latest album was the finest example of that and featured collaborators from Senegal, Cuba and London who all added a true sense of character to his meticulous production. The tracks ranged from broken beat to string laced soul and featured found sounds from Moroccan markets and bustling townships that took you on a truly global adventure. His mix, of course, travels just as far and wide and plays out like an audio diary that tells a thousand stories. There's gorgeous instrumental fair setting the scene and sojourns into heavy drums that’ll have you in a trance psychedelic melting pots of intoxicating synths and wind instruments and steamy and menace, it takes you places you’ll likely never have been before.

Chinese born Tzusing has spent time in Chicago, Singapore and Taiwan and “this condition of dislocation” is what informs his music. It is a brash mix of industrial textures, harsh broken techno and subversive pop, trap and rap that is all blurred into one borderless offering that mirrors his own personal intersections. That music has come on LIES since 2011 and has given rise to standout LP 東方不敗 in 2017 that lead to shows on Boiler Room, Dommune and at Berghain. He was quiet on the release front in 2018, but has started this year with a new split EP on Pan, and now offers us a musical catch up ahead of him playing at Dekmantel Festival later in the year. Over the course of seventy minutes he jumps around restlessly, but somehow his sounds remain united by shiny metallic surfaces whether he’s mixing in Asian pop, whirring computer sounds in meltdown or horror-core. To us, it sounds like a futuristic soundtrack to some hyper urban metropolis that’s on the brink of collapse, and it’s genuinely compelling.

Mike Parker, you would assume, is a perfectionist. His techno is meticulous, his grooves as hypnotic as any. Over the course of two decades he has honed in on his vision with ever increasing accuracy. He manages to get huge amounts of detail into his tunes that elevates them above purely functional material and lands him on labels like Semantica, Prologue and Tresor in both EP and LP format. The American is just as deep and powerful as a DJ, even without the use of kick drums. And that’s the path he follows over the course of one absorbing hour here, laying out a cinematic journey into space that is propelled by ambient synths and sci-fi motifs that set real scenes and have a real sense of narrative. At times it is blissful, at others more unnerving, but rarely will you hear an ambient mix as coherent and compelling as this.

Detroit’s Patrice Scott is a lifelong student of the deep who brings something fresh to his more techno orientated hometown. His smoky, atmospheric house lays low and rolls on endlessly, getting you in a meditative state and keeping you there with spine-tingling vocal motifs and beautifully delicate keys. His own Sistrum label has been on a similar mission since 2006, and you’d be hard pushed to find deep house as raw and emotionally charged anywhere in the world. His podcast is a two hour masterclass in smooth and seductive house that explores plenty of different moods. Selections exude the sort of class and quality that Scott has made his trademark: he’s not afraid of a jiggy drum pattern, or a vulnerable female voice, but the kicks always remain rooted to the floor and impossible to ignore. Come rain or shine, outdoor stages or indoor sweat boxes, this is the sort of mix that will always make a mark.

Has anyone toyed with the rules and subverted expectation quite as much as DJ Fett Burger in recent years? We can’t think of many people who are more thrilling to listen to than the Sex Tags co-founder. Whether viewing ambient through a dubby house lens, getting wilfully weird with time signatures or wonderfully wonky with his grooves, the Norwegian is in a class of one. He’s fairly prolific too, with more than 22 EPs to his name since 2012, yet each and every time he steps out, he manages to sound more fun and freaky than before. It’s the same story with his DJ sets. The one we have here is a three-hour ready-made party: it starts with ass-wiggling funk and joyous disco before things begin to unravel into tumble-down house and heavily percussive afro drums. Fett Burger isn’t afraid to suddenly switch up the tempo or roughly blend in a new tune, either, just so long as the energy remains. And it does, with things ending up not far from where they started with a classic slice of Prince that will leave you wanting to do it all again.

VC-118A is a firm favourite with electro’s most hardcore fans. The Dutchman - who also works as Mohlao and Multicast Dynamics - covers every shade from moody and insular to purely for the floor. He’s a regular on the most reliable labels in the scene including Delsin (where he just released his new album 'Inside'), Frustrated Funk and Radio Matrix, and always manages to get rich contrasts in his music that make it as impactful as it is thoughtful. He’s also one of the most able live acts in the game; someone who soundtracks imaginary movies that play out while you’re lost in the darkness. He keeps it high tempo over the course of an hour here, with corrugated drum funk and glistening sci-fi synths all racing along and taking you with them. At times there is an aggressive sense of industrialism to the music, but just when the pressure is about to get too much, you’re off into more eerie and empty sonic worlds that forever keep you guessing. Sit back, then, and enjoy a master at work.

Techno collaborations don’t come much more exciting than Neon Chambers. Made up of UK titan Sigha and famously experimental Frenchman Kangding Ray, the pair have very much defined the modern sound of the genre with their solo careers. When coming together for their blistering live show, they fuse avant-garde sounds with machine-driven grooves and work up music that manages to make an impact on the floor as well as fire your cerebral cortex. Later this year, the pair will play at Dekmantel 2019, but before that we have a set to get you in the zone as to what to expect. Of course, it is a stylish and boundary pushing exploration of tempo and texture that is all up close and intricate synthesis one moment, then more laid back dub swagger the next. Never rooted to one sound world, there are cosmic vibes as well as raw industrialism all touched upon, and the result is as arresting as you would expect from this hugely proficient pair.

Jonny Rock knows how to entertain any sort of dance floor. The Worldwide FM radio host runs Turkish focussed labels Hamam House and Disco Hamam and has very much driven the renewed focus in Eastern music as a result. His record collection is a treasure trove of knowledge when it comes to unusual scenes and sounds and will put anyone’s to shame. He has held residences at places as diverse as Classic at The End, Key at Phonica and Herbal, and his own productions take in whatever he wants, be it house on The Nothing Special or techno on ESP Institute. There is no holding back over the course of his podcast, which gets straight to business with some wild breakbeat action. All forms of house from jacked up to deep, celebratory to acid then get seamlessly linked together into something that feels very much informed by the past but in no way a slave to the classics. It’s the sound of a man who very much knows what he’s doing in top form.

Although a relative newcomer to the DJ game, JASSS has really managed to shake up the dance floor in the last couple of years ( not least with her residency at Berghain's Säule). Releases on Anunnaki Cartel, Mannequin and iDEAL Recordings have showcased her rugged and gritty approach to EBM, industrial, acid and techno. Between those releases she has covered experimental sound art, soundscapes and more club focusses beats, all while playing to her own rules and fighting her own internal battles. On her Dekmantel podcast the Spaniard goes direct to the club with visceral drums and stark synths. It’s a mix that hurries you along for the ride, jostling you with breakbeats and rave stabs then rewriting your brain with prickly techno before allowing you a moment to breath in some more elastic and rubbery house music. It’s always full flavour, high impact stuff that is brilliantly compelling and strobe lit throughout, whether stepping at half time or falling over itself in a race to the end.

Kasra V’s unique fusion of eastern and western sounds has made him one of the most intriguing artists of the day. The Iranian has established himself with an NTS show (that is more than 100 episodes deep) and DJ sound that mixes old school UK rave with Belgian techno, acid house, trance and eastern grooves that make for spellbinding experiences. In 2018 he collaborated with Dopplerekkekt and is working on a reissue compilation series that focuses on Iranian sounds as well as original dance material. Later this year he will play for us at Dekmantel Selectors so you can get an insight into what to expect on this week’s podcast: It’s a whirlwind hour of trance-inducing electronics. Zoned out synths are layered up over smooth rolling drums, with sci-fi references and progressive grooves lifting you ever higher. Acid flashes, retro motifs and slick mixing all make it a perfectly absorbing trip.

Afrodeutsche’s music is a collision of many different worlds. She herself is British born, but with Ghanaian, Russian and German heritage, while her influences and inspirations span classical piano, film and documentary music. Based in Manchester, she is a composer and producer with a regular show on NTS that explores her love of techno and electro and which goes from dark and tough to jacked up and broken. Her mix for us is a 90 minute excursion through her musical mind: it’s a busy one that veers from ghostly ambiance to serrated machine music. While a subtle hardcore nostalgia colours the airwaves one moment, decidedly forward facing bass music will twist you inside out the next, and the whole thing is run through with a sense of menace and mystery that is perfect for shady, strobe-lit clubs.

Efdemin has all but perfected his deep, expertly reduced take on house and techno. The German artist has mastered his form over the course of numerous 12”s on various labels, including three albums on Dial Records. They are intricate, mind bending affairs that take you in on yourself and constantly explore new ground. His hybrid mix CD on his own Naïf imprint and Curle last year was another career high point, and recently he has turned himself towards experimental and microtonal composition with yet more fascinating results. February 2019 will see Ostgut Ton release New Atlantis, his latest album and one inspired by Francis Bacon’s unfinished 17th century novel of the same name. Promising to fuse his left-of-centre take on dance music with a new found passion for experimental sound art, it’s the latest chapter in a fascinating artistic story. His podcast for us is a decidedly club-focussed mix, featuring the sort of warped synths and underlapping grooves you would expect of the man. There are multi-layered tracks of percussion, sound design and stringy rhythms to start, then things slip into long, draw out passages of tunnel vision techno before the drums begin to hit harder to carry you home. At times playful, at others deadly serious, it sums up the career of Efdemin perfectly.

Beta Librae is the brightest star in the Libra constellation, but also one of the brightest stars in techno. Bailey Hoffman hails from New York City and arrived in 2015 pretty much with a fully formed and decidedly singular sound. Releasing albums and EPs on labels like Incienso and Allergy Season, she draws on ambient, downtempo, new age and house music to stir up weird atmospheres and slow motion grooves. Lots goes on between her lazy kicks, and it all serves to sink you into a cavernous and expansive world of beautiful melody and loose percussion. Over the course of ninety minutes, Hoffman’s wide sphere of influences are all exposed. There’s kaleidoscopic techno that traps you in a hall of mirrors as melodies refracted all around, ramshackle drums that are on the verge of collapse and murky house music that’s gritty and grimy. The transitions between these worlds are subtle, and for every passage of dark and dirty texture there are moments of light emitting beauty that keeps the whole thing moving. This is club music from a whole new perspective.

As soft and dreamy as their moniker may be, Clouds actually make some of the most brutal and destructive techno out there. The Scottish duo of Calum MacLeod and Liam Robertson have been doing so with ever more abrasive surfaces and twisted drums since 2010, releasing on the likes of Turbo, Opal Tapes and Soma. Two of their three albums, though, have come on Speedy J’s Electric Deluxe. The latest, Heavy The Eclipse, is a conceptual affair that comes with a brilliantly realised website telling the story of a city that was left to rot after social and economic collapse. This “post-industrial hell-future” is taken over by Germans and renamed Neurealm, and is soundtracked across 14 perfectly dark and dystopian pieces featuring snippets of vocals, tinges of euphoria, passages of desolate dub and frazzled industrial noise. In their mix for us, the pair continue with that bleakly immersive sonic imagery by using unreleased material only! Nightmarish screams are obscured by scuzzy sonic blizzards, rave synths spray about above overdriven drums and hardcore and dub culture references often poke through the mire. It’s an all out aural assault that takes you to the heart of a grotty, strobe-lit warehouse in the very dead of night.

After numerous compilation appearances, the first half of 2018 saw object blue put out her first two solo EPs—‘Do you plan to end a siege?' on Tobago Tracks and 'REX' on Let’s Go Swimming.’ Their impact, next to her spellbinding live shows, was so significant that by the end of the year she was one of the most talked about new artists around. The reason is that the Chinese sound designer contorts her drum machines and smudges her synths with utter disregard for any rules and lands somewhere fresh and new; some grey area between broken techno, warped bass and experimental club. A sonic meticulousness always manages to shine through object blue’s work, despite what can often be carnage beneath the surface. And that’s the case with the one hour session we end the year with here: it’s a symphony of layers that variously sooth and seduce or rough you up with rhythm. Despite the shades of sound art and musical collage that are never far away, a dance floor narrative underlines the whole thing and will keep you moving well into 2019, a year which promises plenty for object blue.

There are a great deal of things you can say about Dan Snaith. His list of achievements would burnish any CV: a doctorate in mathematics under one arm, and some of the 21st century’s most celebrated electronica albums under the other. He manages to juggle festival headline slots across the world with the live iteration of Caribou, while slipping out timeless dancefloor burners and one of the last ever FabricLive CDs as Daphni. Oh, and he’s a super friendly guy too. That experience – and crowd-charming magnetism – can be heard all over today’s Dekmantel Podcast, a three-hour tour de force of Daphni in peak-time mode at the peak of summer. Recorded on Sunday of Dekmantel Festival 2018, in the middle of a humble-superstar-sandwich of Jamie XX / Floating Points, Snaith glides between rave stabs, strutting funk, stirring soul, global grooves and everything else under the (very warm) sun. Here’s to the next decade of Dan’s dominance!

Amsterdam’s Mendel doesn’t want the headlines, he wants your heart. He’s a DJ who likes to make connections between sounds and scenes that span entire continents and generations. He works the floor into a loved-up mass that doesn’t know where it is going next. He often drops his own well crafted edits into his sets with a sympathetic touch that continues to win him an ever more ardent fan base. Next to a rare knowledge of soul and disco, he also loves house music. All these elements come together on his mix for us, which is another impossibly nimble jaunt through the ages. Energetic disco, heart swelling house and breezy, afro tinged groovers all sit smoothly together with acid jack and uplifting songs. Add in some old classics and future anthems that the 'ID?' crew will die for, and you have a perfectly tasteful party mix that works in any setting, during any season.

When New York City’s DJ Python (@wnkrs) is in the studio, very different worlds collide. His drums and rhythms draw on dub and reggae, his synths come from celestial ambient skies, and together they resulted in 2017’s Dulce Compañia album on Anthony Naple’s Incienso. As beautiful as it is beguiling, the music was hugely original and managed to make both a physical and cerebral impact. Since then he has made music for Moxie’s On Loop and also been installed as resident at Mister Saturday Night's New York venue Nowadays. In brazen fashion, Python calls his Dekmantel selection ‘Best Mix of The Year Let’s be Real’ and certainly does come correct over 75 minutes. As ever he serves up the unlikely but intoxicating pairing of dub rhythms and soothing ambient. Before long he has you utterly locked in for the ride as the drums get more long legged and upright, broken and steel plated. The synths get freaky, too, with cut up vocals and tropical percussion all colouring the airwaves in ways only DJ Python can.

Fred P’s music is not just deep, but spiritual. Under his own name as well as Black Jazz Consortium, FP-Oner and FP197, the man from Queens, New York imbues his bottomless grooves with pensive pads and emotionally loaded keys that sink you into another dimension. His DJ sets are also cathartic experiences for mind, body and soul, and he’s remained hugely prolific over the course of more than 11 LPs and 20 EPs during the last decade. His eternal aim is “to raise each other's consciousness”, and he never fails to do that whether playing all night long at one of his residences or serving up releases on his own Soul People Music. In October, that label came to an end after more than a decade, only to make way for Perpetual Sound, which launched with a new Black Jazz Consortium EP featuring remixes from Mr G and Fred P. His emotionally awakening style is present and correct on this 90 minute mix he serves up for us. It starts with warm and cavernous atmospheres and the sort of balmy pads and tight basslines that define his sound, before progressing into a zoned out techno sound. Always smooth and meditative, moments of jazzy musicality are never far away, and there is a timeless nature to everything Fred does. Without him, then, dance music wouldn’t be anywhere near as deep.

It was a long time coming, but last month Fatima finally dropped the follow up to her debut album Yellow Memories. And Yet It’s All Love—released on long time home Eglo—found the artist’s newly matured vocals taking centre stage amongst production that was slightly more paired back. It revealed her very real talents on the mic and her ability to go from buttery smooth slow jams to resoundingly chest pumping neo-soul anthems via curiously innocent lullabies and grown-up jazzy invention. Covering a wide musical and emotional scale, the record mixed up all consuming seriousness with the same sense of fun and playfulness that characterises her essential radio shows on NTS. They are treasure troves of r&b, hip hop and neo-soul that can be 20 years old or not yet released, and that’s what she serves up on her ‘Maple Motivation Mix’ here. It’s an intimate and personal listen that offers a window into the artist’s wide array of influences. Like Fatima’s own rich musical output, it variously bumps and grinds, melts your heart or empowers you, and will keep you coming back for more time and time again.

Chicago’s Specter is a maverick, but one who has remained somewhat under the radar. Over the course of twenty years, he’s continually turned out gritty house that manages to be deep yet physical. For the last eight of those he has released on Theo Parrish’s Sound Signature—a suitably unconventional home for his unconventional grooves. Most recently he excelled on his debut full length, Built to Last, which reworked house music into various colourful, experimental and bass heavy new forms. As well as rare studio skill, Spectre is a hardworking DJ who can light up a loft or jack a warehouse. On his Dekmantel mix, he decides to serve up a two hour mix that is suited to home listening. It’s all simmering, slow burning deepness to start with before gradually the drums grow more raw and angular. The mood remains reflective and thoughtful, though; a meditation on the more cerebral side of house music, which is just one of the many things Specter does so well.

Like his name suggests, Black Merlin is something of a wizard. His music is drenched in worldly sounds and colourful cultures, not least his forthcoming Kosua album, a second on Island of The Gods. Inspired by his love affair with the island of Papua New Guinea, it features recordings of the local tribes, jungle sounds, wildlife and ancient dance customs so is a living and breathing document that immediately transports you to the southwestern Pacific. It comes after years of dizzyingly diverse releases on the likes of Pinkman, Mannequin and She Lost Kontrol that mix up EBM, techno, ambient and house, plus collaborative projects such as Karamka and Spectral Empire. His 90 minute mix for us is as stylish and unrestricted as you would expect, and given that we’re in Halloween month, it feels like it’s come just at the right time. Starting out with soot black apoca-disco, it traverses its way through study industrial, urban desolation and factory floors in meltdown. It’s mechanical and shadowy, but always filled with a sense of tension and suspense that keeps you enthralled.

Lisbon is enjoy plenty of time in the spotlight at the moment, not least thanks to artists like Violet, who is busy on many different fronts at once. As a lone force she producers anything from big techno breakbeats to rave tinged acid house. Next to that she’s also co-founded Radio Quântica, which is an essential platform for local underground artists and activists. She also performs as part of an all female rap group and covers classic tunes made solely by woman. Besides that, she even found time to start her own new label, Naive, this year. It should come as no surprise that such an active mind packs a lot into her 75 minute mix. Tripped out cosmic breakbeats kick things off before the drums grow more distorted and synths begin to howl as you’re dumped onto a dance floor at 3am. A subtle rave euphoria washes over the mid section before dusty breakbeats and slippery electro see things out. Despite the driving nature of the underlying drums, this is a mix that exudes warmth, soul and romance.

Italian-born but Berlin-based Eva Geist doesn’t make music so much as cinematic trips. A composer, synthesiser and vocalist, she has made albums for Macadam Mambo and Elestial Sound that draw on sythwave, leftfield electronics and ambient to make for occult sonic adventures. Her mastery of analogue machinery results in enigmatic offerings than can variously be spiritual, tribal or trance inducing, but always take you into an unusual world of rarefied melodies and soft beats. Her mix for us is a very personal, living and breathing affair that was put together on a new setup. It’s a collection of jams, each recorded on a different day, and laced up with field recordings taken in glaciers in Kazakhstan during the filming of a documentary and art installation Eva is collaborating on (it’s called Baden Projekt and you can find details here https://vimeo.com/badenprojekt), as well as her voice, small acoustic instruments and some excerpts of speeches by Carmelo Bene, Paolo Barnard and Pier Paolo Pasolini. “It's basically a short novel about birth, consumerism, life as a big illusion and so on,” she explains. The resulting 45 minutes of ambient, drone, spoken word and found sounds is like a soundtrack to a movie that exists only in your mind, and is truly absorbing.

Last month, Andy Votel put out his Midlife Crisis Disco Mixtape on limited cassette and it sold out in minutes. However, the English producer, designer and DJ has very kindly given us the exclusive honour of releasing the mixtape digitally, for the very first time, through our podcast series. He is, of course the man behind reissue label Finders Keepers as well as Twisted Nerve, and has released a wealth of music under various pseudonyms on labels like XL. He is someone who is utterly free from categorisation having mixed jazz and hip hop at The Hacienda, documented the history of Welsh protest music on BBC Radio 4, collaborated with Demdike Stare, Suzanne Ciani and Gruff Rhys, and produced for Badly Drawn Boy amongst a lifetime of other dizzyingly diverse projects such as presenting radio shows for Gilles Peterson and NTS. As the title suggests, his latest mixtape is focussed on outsider disco, and is made from original vinyl pressings only. Like the tens of others he has done over the years, it’s a masterclass jam packed with heat, propped up by funky drums and run through with boogie baselines or soaring strings. The tape brims with squelchy synthesiser colour and features vocals in a range of languages that lend it a worldwide feel and global appeal. It’s one for the ages, that’s for sure.

Time sure does fly when you’re having fun, and so it is that we’ve already raced up to podcast number 200. We’ve managed to call upon a suitably large name for the honour; someone who has very much shaped the techno scene over the course of the last 20 years and continues to excite people every time he plays. That man is Surgeon. As a performer, Birmingham’s Anthony Childs was one of the first men to embrace and exploit the possibilities of Ableton Live and Final Scratch. His mastery of that technology made his sets even more improvised and innovative, and over the years he has never compromised his vision. He plays with a sense of devastation and destruction that explores the very outer edges of what is possible, while always keeping the dance floor absolutely locked in. It’s been the same since he founded his hometown’s first techno club, House of God, at the start of the 90s. As a producer—whether solo or in celebrated collaborations with Regis as British Murder Boys or Ben Sims as Frequency 7—he seems to be getting better with age. Right from his first EP on Karl O’Connor’s Downwards in 1994, surgeon has had a hard hitting, linear style that remains to this day. Recent years saw him return to a primitive rave style and incorporate the gritty industrial influences of his youth. But in 2018 he evolved again and served up what many consider to be his best album in years. Luminosity Device features a more rhythmic, playful sense of drum programming next to his meticulously crafted synths and enthralling sense of urgency and future paranoia. The nuance in his tracks is now as intriguing as the visceral power of the kicks, and it all adds up to an album that works as well on headphones, at home, as it does on the dance floor. It’s proper techno by a proper techno head. And so is the mix he has put together for us. Over 1 hour 45 minutes, the man calls upon plenty of pivotal names from Juan Atkins and Oscar Mulero to Donato Dozzy and James Ruskin. There are plenty of twists and turns along the way, so that zoned out passages of dubbed out drums are followed by intergalactic space battles and moments of synth laden intensity. It’s a testament to Surgeon’s skills that he can take you to such far ranging corners of the techno world without ever getting lost.

October welcomes Peaking Lights to our podcast series but also our label, because on the 15th of the month the Californian electronic pop duo serve up Sand of Sea. It’s their first release of the year and a six track trip into their woozy and immersive, dubbed out electronics. It comes after a decade of Aaron Coyes and Indra Dunis and honing their sound on a broad selection of labels from Domino to 100% Silk. The husband and wife pair are known for their spellbinding live show and have put out nine LPs that mirror the shimmering horizons and long warm nights of their LA hometown. This super extended four hour jam is a comprehensive overview of what they can do. It has a global narrative that takes you to a humid African plain then on to a beach a sunset. It veers from clunky mechanical grooves to blissed out synthscapes with ease, and tempos always stay at an invitingly slow pace, so there is plenty of space to think and get lost between the beats. Summer might now be in the rear view mirror, but this mix will always bring some sunshine into your life.

Mathew Jonson brings lovers of all forms of dance music together. His live show is one of the best in the business: an elegant techno adventure with pounding drums and well crafted synths that endlessly twist and turn through emotional highs and darker physical depths. In short, he is someone as schooled in jazz as he is electronic synthesis. He’s a master of his hardware; a human who can speak through his machines. His meticulous approach also carries over into the studio and has given rise to plenty of underground hits on his own labels as well as a fine selection of others. His mix for us this week is a 90 minute recording of his masterful live set at Dekmantel 2017. Wasting no time in getting down to business, it kicks off with classic electro and from there the killer baselines just keeping on coming, some from his own back catalogue, some from outer space and some from the future. It’s a mix with a compelling sense of momentum and one that traverses sounds and scenes with ease.

VRIL is one of the most reliable artists in techno. He emerged with a style that was his own and has pretty much stuck to it ever since. Eight years after his debut, that loopy, dubby take on the genre sounds as vital as ever, and most often comes on labels like Delsin, Dystopian and Giegling. A live set from the German is just as floor facing and effective. It will veer from deeper moments of intensity to trippy, off kilter drum patterns that are designed to keep you moving. Here he serves up a perfectly mix that syncs perfectly with the changing season: it’s all warm and cuddly from the off, with cosy dub techno cocooning you in an inviting sound world that slowly transitions into more twisted and straight up techno. Whether the drums are thumping or laying more horizontal, there is an absorbing intensity to VRIL's work that proves he is someone who has a real mastery of his art.