BC159 - Five Mixes: New Year’s Day 2026
Welcome from the terrordome
Oscar Mulero, via his website
There’s no getting around it—this is not only way late, but I practically had to will it into being. For one thing, its makeup kept changing (for the better, duh), and for another, the entire state of Minnesota have been under federal siege for two horrible months. It’s absolute hell right now, and I say this as someone whose area has been remarkably quiet the whole time. I haven’t seen a single incident yet. But most everybody I know has, and it has already marked them, visibly. I worry particularly for specific people, family and friends. The people I see talking on camera about what ICE has put them through—the people who’ve been released, who know damn well how fortunate they are not to be among those still in, those never coming out—are so exhausted.
And for what? There is no upside to any of this. It is an invasion entirely built on lies. No amount of fury over the sheer waste and stupidity of it, the ass-backward asininity of its shit-for-brains animating “ideas” and the dead-eyed monsters implementing it, the pure evil of the entire thing, will ever be adequate.
Exhale. Now, the business at hand: Last year’s NYD roundup (cf. BC109) happened more or less by accident—I happened to be trawling for new stuff and came across enough goodies from January 1 to constitute a grouping. This time, I hunted some, with the result that four of these DJs are previously known quantities, as opposed to zero last time. Only one SWU this time, rather than three, as well. These were made or uploaded on January 1, so I’ve eschewed dates except where they form part of the title; they’re alphabetical by artist.
You can listen to all five sets at this SoundCloud playlist.
Black Rave Culture, Carhartt WIP Radio January 2026
If their RA Podcast (cf. BC148) was a banquet, this is a meal. Main course: breakbeats. It’s also a history lesson, albeit an oblique one. So are most DJ sets, you may think, not wrongly. But when foundational James Brown loops (note plural) rub up against “Percolator” edits and the Supremes, among other things, you can take the DJ trio’s name to be even more expansive than it already reads. And that’s only the second half.
MoMa Ready, ambient mix_1_1_26
DJ Python, Live at C2C Festival (Turin, rec. October 31, 2025)
These two are musically unalike, but their construction draws parallels. Each is two hours; each is freewheeling and exploratory, even if all they’re doing (and it’s likely enough) is playing their old favorites. Python kicks off slowly and builds—each successive track focuses on buzzier-than-last synth and/or voice riffage, all atop percussion that paradiddles madly around the straight four when not straight-up relying on breakbeats. MoMa Ready’s cavalcade of drones, chimes, tunelets, gurgles, and f/x brings in the New Year we deserve and are not getting. Bonus: a waveform that evokes a row of icicles.
Oscar Mulero, MNMT 500
TK.Skittery electro surrounded by with playfully menacing distortion clouds, this was the actual first 2026 mix I listened to—a good omen, musically anyway. The arc is sundown to sunup, there’s air and sunlight here as well as dark vortices, and the weird noises for their own sake diverting—as opposed to, say, the impressive density but ultimate airlessness of an Objekt set I turned off halfway through.
Ssslip, SWU.FM
With respect to Body Clinic (SoundCloud), Deselecta (SoundCloud), and Toby Ross (SoundCloud), this was the SWU NYD set that stuck with me—by landing on cruise control rather than sticking its elbows out. Mood: early-nineties near-techno with stompy bass that’s not industrial or very Detroit-sounding, serious not grim. The occasional pitched-down male voices say things rather than chant or sing them.