As we come sauntering into summer, it helps to have a little something to set the vibe. And here we do: various somethings, in fact, for various types of vibes. For the path of least resistance—the revelers, the relishers, the mojito drinkers and dippers in pools—we've got Kim Ann Foxman, Axel Boman, and Kornél Kovács to thank for providing house and disco sets that go down as easy as a freshly shucked oyster. Those stuck at their desks on a sweltering afternoon may find that (Visible) Cloaks' mix of Italian ambient and new age from the '80s is as effective as Calgon in taking them far, far away. And then there are knottier, more difficult sets from Lena Willikens, Mozhgan, and Karen Gwyer, who each, in their own way, say, "Fuck summer, pass the acid."
And if these aren't enough, check out last month's Best Mixes column.
Lena Willikens – Dekmantel 070
As a resident DJ at Düsseldorf's Salon des Amateurs, Lena Willikens has established herself as a selector with deep crates, unusual tastes, and the ability to make even the most audacious blends seem absolutely natural. This knotty set for Dekmantel is like a bird's nest made out of twist ties, barbed wire, and sun-faded plastic bags. Willikens weaves together jittery electro rhythms and spindly synth melodies in a way that makes them nearly impossible to disentangle, though scraps of melody or voice—a slowed-down Middle Eastern lament, or a druggy voiceover from Hawkwind's “Ejection”—occasionally flap free in the breeze. It all builds toward a punishing, near-gabber climax of Z-Bomb's “Keepers of the Cheese,” the Delusion Men's new wavy “Phaser Train,” and Container's sandblasting “Remover,” before she brings us gently back to earth with a wistful Krautrock fantasia. A thrilling, masterful mix from start to finish.
Mozhgan – Venom Mix
In her guest mix for San Francisco's Honey Soundsystem, Mozhgan, a resident DJ at the city's We Are Monsters club nights, approaches the set like a warm-up slot. Starting off at a creepy-crawly 105 or so beats per minute, she steadily keeps upping the tempo across the whole 50-minute set, but the shift is almost imperceptible. (Just like the title suggests, stealth is the name of the game here.) Her sense of control is matched only by her commitment to shadowy atmospherics: Favoring gothic disco, grinding EBM, and gravelly acid tracks, the whole set is shot through with empty space. It's the kind of basement techno that makes you wish you'd brought a sweater, because damn, it's cold down here.
Kornél Kovács – Ace & Tate Sounds
A pitched-down snippet of Janet Jackson talking and giggling in the studio sets the woozy, whimsical tone of this summery set from Stockholm's Kornél Kovács, one-third of the Studio Barnhus braintrust. He digs out some killer cuts along the way: A hip-hop beat from DJ Koze blends into a slinky, slow-motion stepper from Ireland's Wah Wah Wino; one's 11 years old and the other one's brand new, but it's a good bet you've never heard either of them. And the freestyle revival of Samo DJ & Tzusing's ridiculously fun “Hollabackboi” sets up the breezily bluesy electro-disco of Barbara Mason's 1984 song “Another Man.” Along the way, we get soulful Swedish quirk from Pedrodollar and Axel Boman, ambient weirdness from Omar-S, and—why not?—Atom TM's 2005 all-marimba cover of Samantha Fox's “Touch Me (I Want Your Body).” Just 45 minutes long, the set makes the perfect companion for commuting around the city or working in the kitchen—and it'll leave you feeling nicely altered in the process.
Kim Ann Foxman – Beats in Space #834
An unmistakably New York spirit colors Kim Ann Foxman's set for Tim Sweeney's Beats in Space show: An unidentified track around 10 minutes in features a sampled wail that I could swear was used in an early Jungle Brothers or De La Soul tune, and another unidentified song, around the 19-minute mark, is abuzz with the sirens and muted horn blasts of the Bomb Squad's productions. Throughout the set, Foxman, a former Hercules and Love Affair member, favors the sounds of the late '80s and early '90s: punchy breakbeats, buzzing M1 bass, rave stabs, and scads of acid. Most of her selections are recent tunes that could be mistaken for period productions, like Bézier's EBM-leaning “Centrifuge,” LA-4a's jittery “Understand,” and Doms & Deykers' rave throwback “Bafff;” in the context of the set, Future Sound of London's 1991 bleeps-'n'-breaks cut “Pulse State” is all but indistinguishable from brand-new releases. Keep an ear out for Jagerverb & Danny Daze's remarkable “BRAV,” a marimba-kissed techno outlier in the set, along with two of Foxman's own productions that go to the heart of her aesthetic—tough and dreamy all at once.
Karen Gwyer – Crack Mix 111
Here's a good mix for bad moods. Distorted drum machines, jittery arpeggios, beehive drones, garbled shortwave transmissions, the whine of an airplane prepping for takeoff—it all swirls together and surges toward a brutal climax of flayed 909 hi-hats and death-gurgle acid. Save one song by Drexciya and another by Hank Jackson, I don't have the faintest idea what most of it is, but it is, after all, a set that values chaos over clarity. Much like the London musician's own productions, it's a white-knuckled trip into heavy, psychedelic machine music.
Axel Boman – Dekmantel 068
And here's a great mix for good moods. Fans of Daft Punk's brand of loopy filter disco—which is to say, pretty much everyone—will find plenty to love here, as the Swedish DJ Axel Boman leans hard on Chicago and New York styles of house music that influenced the French duo's first records. Save for a couple of recent edits in a vintage vein, the set draws almost exclusively on the '90s, from Kenny Dope's crisp, propulsive “Petey Wheatstraw” (produced under his Total Madness alias) to Terence Parker's heavenly “Your Love,” which helps itself to a lovely hook from First Choice's “Doctor Love”; Disco Fuhrer's “Si-Si-Bon,” a DJ Pierre production that came out on Strictly Rhythm in 1996, turns hypnotic horns and pianos into a woozy carnival ride of a tune.
One fun thing about this mix: Despite the average age of his selections, the tracklist isn't an excuse to show off the rarity of Boman's collection; a lot of these things are $1, back-of-the-bin finds—a reminder that you don't need to drop stupid money on Discogs to find great old records. Anyway, it's a sweet, summery set that'll leave you beaming.
(Visible) Cloaks – Music Interiors Vol. 2: Interni Italiani
(Visible) Cloaks' Spencer Doran takes an almost academic approach to his mixtapes: Fairlights, Mallets and Bambooand Fairlights, Mallets and Bamboo Vol. 2 survey the sound of Japanese ambient and electronic music from the 1980s, and in a few short years they've become cult classics among fans of digital synths and shakuhachi flute samples. With 2013's Music Interiors, he turned his attention to the Japanese new age and ambient music that he described as “emanating from the corporate infrastructure of the 1980s asset bubble”—“FM synthesis, prefab ‘lifestyle’ soundscapes and the illusion of nature in a hyper-urban environment.” For the sequel, he turns his attention to the same period in Italy: specifically, "ethnographic plunderphonics, post-Battiato spiritual minimalism and hypnotic FM patterns (plus Mediterranean fourth world currents throughout)." New age synth sketches and digi-marimba mood pieces pour into reverberant drumscapes, druggy tape manipulations, and glistening forays into the MIDI uncanny valley. And as a bonus side effect, even if you live in a dump, for the duration of its 60-minute running time, you'll feel like you live in the most stylish, impeccably appointed European pad. Now that's design within reach.