It’s no secret that in dance music (and beyond), retro rules the roost. The old school looms large over this month’s selection of must-hear mixes, too, whether it’s Planet Mu label boss Mike Paradinas going to town on a grip of vintage Aphex Twin tracks, or Aussie newcomer Mall Grab busting out a mess of jungle tunes originally released when he was still in short pants. Even Teki Latex’s irreverent manner of zig-zagging across genres self-consciously harks back to a style of DJing that Hollertronix and Radio Soulwax popularized 15 years ago.
Even though featured folks like Bjørn Torske and Inga Mauer have a habit of mixing up the old with the new, not absolutely everything this month looks backwards. Hivern Discs label boss Dani Baughman puts together a mesmerizing snapshot of John Talabot’s Barcelona-based label. And while Quay Dash’s Discwoman mix is intended as a kind of musical autobiography, the way it contributes to a rising movement of trans visibility couldn't feel timelier (and more necessary). In her case, electronic futurism doesn’t mean space flight and telepathy. It’s about gaining a measure of respect long denied; it’s about surviving, and smacking down naysayers left and right.
Mike Paradinas – Aphex Twin by µ-Ziq (VF Mix 63)
Given Aphex Twin’s trickster persona, it’s hardly surprising that his music isn’t exactly DJ-friendly. (This is a guy, after all, who has been known to spin sandpaper instead of vinyl.) He favors knotty rhythms that don’t necessarily lend themselves to seamless blends, and you need to know his tracks inside out if you want to avoid train-wrecking with them. Fortunately, Planet Mu founder Mike Paradinas understands the workings of Richard D. James’ musical mind better than most people do: He’s one of the few musicians to have collaborated with him. Their 1994 album Expert Knob Twiddlers, released under their Mike & Rich alias, was recently reissued after years out of print, and to commemorate its re-release, Paradinas has put together a 71-minute set of material from Aphex, Caustic Window, Polygon Window, and other James aliases. Most of it dates back to the ’90s, and it finds James in full-on rave mode, full of bilious acid, metallic clang, and enough distortion to strip paint. What might be most surprising is how smoothly it flows, despite the fact that the music itself is anything but. By the time Mescalinium United’s throbbing “We Have Arrived” comes around, there’ll be no doubting why they used to call this stuff “hardcore.”
Mall Grab – Innavision Jungle Mix
Mall Grab usually makes slinky deep house with disco underpinnings and a lo-fi sheen, but in this mix for the Australian clothing company Perks and Mini, he busts out an hour of classic jungle, packed with tons of time-stretching artifacts, plunging 808 toms, and rolling breakbeats. But the lysergic vibe of his own productions carries over, in part because he seems to be playing many of these tunes at -6 or -8. At that tempo, Origin Unknown’s “Valley of the Shadows” turns woozy and weightless, and its looped spoken-word riff—“I felt that I was in this long, dark tunnel,” from a BBC documentary about out-of-body experiences—takes on an extra-dreamlike cast. Throughout, the basslines take on the consistency of swollen sponges, and on the closing tune, Urban Jungle’s 1994 single “Back in the Days,” the samples of Lil’ Louis’ “The Luv U Wanted” wobble like a waterlogged cassette tape.
John Talabot – Moog Barcelona 2016-08-24
Generally speaking, there’s no better place to catch an artist than on home turf. In the case of Barcelona’s John Talabot, no joint fits the bill better than the Moog, a tiny, 200-capacity sweatbox where the strobes cut deep, the fog blasts with abandon, and the vibe bubbles somewhere between “lit” and “bouncing off the ceiling.” Better yet: In this set from late August, Talabot played all night long, which makes for the rare chance to catch him in non-headlining mode, laying down a couple of hours of slower, weirder fare before hitting cruising speed and then plowing through ’til the lights go on. What’s remarkable about this five-and-a-half-hour session is how smoothly and seamlessly it builds from the opening cosmic synth burble and slo-mo chug into slinky jack tracks, shadowy deep house, and sweat-slicked EBM. (The MixesDB tracklist is a helpful resource.) It’s the best kind of paradox: a deeply linear set that still manages to surprise with nearly every blend. Stick it on when you get back to your desk from lunch, and by the time you’re ready to leave work, you’ll be soaring out the door.
Dani Baughman – Carhartt WIP Radio: Hivern Discs
Speaking of John Talabot, Dani Baughman, label manager and A&R at Talabot’s Hivern Discs, turns in a 70-minute set of all-Hivern goodies for Carhartt WIP Radio. (Grit your teeth through the announcer’s voice at the beginning—he goes away after about a minute.) In addition to his regular label duties, Baughman turns out to be a talented DJ in his own right: He’s got a keen sense of pacing, particularly in the slow-building first half, and he’s got a nice knack for unfussy harmonic mixing, letting the tone colors from two different tracks subtly complement each other. Twinkling, cosmic synths and African- and minimalist-inspired repetitions soon give way to the glowering funk and jungle noises of Bep Korota’s “Canoa” and a wavy unreleased tune from Barcelona’s Marc Piñol; Benedikt Frey’s “Out of Here” pushes the energy up a notch or two. In one of the set’s high points, Romy Madley Croft’s vocal from Jamie xx’s “Loud Places” slips and slides over a springy bass throb. And it ends on a gorgeous note that nails Hivern’s melancholic sweet spot.
Quay Dash – Discwoman 10
Balanced between dystopian club tracks, throwback New York boom-bap, and woozy hip-house, Quay Dash’s recent Transphobic EP suggests that the rising Bronx rapper has plenty of range, and the Cunt Mafia associate's mix for the Brooklyn collective Discwoman takes things even further. Just 40 minutes long, it’s a tough, energetic mix that begins with quick-stepping house and techno—’90s Tresor vibes, hard Chicago funk—before building to a ballroom peak and wrapping with slinky R&B. There’s no shortage of high points, from the Jungle Brothers’ perennial "I'll House U" to an apocalyptic warehouse-rave mix of Nicki Minaj’s “Dick in Your Face.” But the high point’s gotta be a segment blazing from giddy ’90s piano house into DBX’s minimal techno classic “Losing Control”—which couldn't be more different but somehow work wonders together—on into a brittle coldwave cover of Joy Division’s “She’s Lost Control.” On paper, you might think a merger of two “Control” tracks could be a little too on-the-nose, but the mix proves it’s a hoot.
Inga Mauer – Bon Voyage 13
The Russian electronic musician Inga Mauer is a perfect fit for her adopted hometown of the Hague: She’s got a thing for the creaky coldwave dread and bone-chilling techno that have long held sway in the small coastal Dutch city, and her latest session for Radio Cómeme is no different. Amid the eerie, mid-tempo throb and gunmetal-sleek textures of acts like Legowelt and Neugeborene Nachtmusik, Alien Sex Fiend’s “Isolation” sticks out like a bloody thumb—exactly, one suspects, as the acid-bathing Batcave veterans would want it. The latter half of the mix cruises through dusky electro with a melancholic tinge, and she wraps it all up with “Them,” a gem from the French artist Nancy Fortune, released in 2001 on Viewlexx—a Hague label, as if you had to ask.
Teki Latex – 100% Radio Hits
San Pellegrino’s Teki Latex frequently structures his mixes around imaginative conceits: A few years ago he tackled something called “deconstructed trance,” and this time, building on the apples-and-oranges juggling act of his Astral Plane mix, he pays tribute to the genre-agnostic approach championed by the likes of Hollertronix and Radio Soulwax. The idea’s pretty simple: pop and dance chestnuts (Ace of Base, Madonna, Britney Spears, Daft Punk) get mashed up with a mess of contemporary grime, techno, and bass music. It’s hardly a new idea, but fortunately, Teki pulls it off without any of the cloying, self-congratulatory smarm of Girl Talk; it helps that he prefers to keep the mood slightly uncomfortable. Even the most colorful moments—like Ace of Base’s “The Sign” knocking against South Rakkas Crew’s “Red Alert Rhythm”—tend to come on like brain-freeze from all that ice cream. For best results, hit the play button without looking at the tracklisting, kick back, and let the shock waves wash over you.
Bjørn Torske – Métron Music Mixtape 035
Norway’s Bjørn Torske has always been just a little bit more difficult to pin down than his fellow disco-not-really-disco countrymen like Lindstrøm, Prins Thomas, and Todd Terje. He got his start making Chicago-influenced deep house and techno for Russ Gabriel’s Ferox label before moving on to a pair of underrated albums for Smalltown Supersound that swerved between digi-dub, leftfield house, and Balearic disco; he covers a similar range here. Don’t be fooled by the deep, droning ambient cut from Biosphere that opens the set. For the most part, he keeps the mood breezy, bobbing between the organ-laced reggae of Negril’s “East Side West Side,” the bluesy synths and guitars of Yellow Power’s “Blue Fusion,” and the flamenco-tinged worldbeat of Suns of Arqa’s “World Peace.” The set’s structured in such a way that you could easily slot it onto a C-100 cassette: After the playful, eclectic first half, there’s a quick fade-out, and the second half digs into slow-motion house and disco stitched up with touches of new wave and Afro-Latin percussion, some unreleased Sex Tags Mania cuts, and, as the coup de grace, Jeff Mills’ “The Alarms” played at 33 instead of 45. (Check the tracklisting here.) The ambient outro is pretty brilliant, too, making for a mix that keeps you guessing ’til the end.
Sote - #UP033
In anticipation of his performance at Krakow’s Unsound festival in October, Tehran’s Ata Ebtekar surveys a range of Iranian electronic and electro-acoustic music: a wealth of buzz and scrape and shimmer from both Persian classical titans like Alireza Mashayekhi and contemporary musicians like San Francisco’s Cameron Shafii. Dariush Dolat-Shahi is in here too, which is a bonus. His semi-recently reissued 1985 album Electronic Music, Tar and Sehtar is one of the most mind-boggling albums I know, in any genre. Pairing stringed instruments with gurgling electric tones and field recordings of frogs and thunder, it’s the kind of thing that makes you wonder what else is out there that you never dreamed existed. It’s easy to trace its meditative, psychedelic impact on Ebtekar’s own transporting style.
Have a look at last month’s Best Mixes column.