BC160 - Five Mixes: January 2026
Tidal waves from Tanzania, plus some thoughts on the format
Flying Lotus, via his website
My apologies for lateness—checking the Web to see if anybody I know (or anybody I live in the same state with) has been murdered can take over one’s timeline, especially when there’s other stuff to get to as well. But I did post a note that I’m going to repeat here—not because it’s a new thought but because it’s an old one, or at least I’d typed it in December while waiting for my meal at a restaurant:
FIVE REASONS I WRITE ABOUT MIXES
There’s too many of them and not enough analysis about it and them.
It’s how and where (the bulk of) the music lives.
It eliminates a layer—the listening I’d do to releases has in a sense been done for me by the DJs—even as it adds another, in that mixes are becoming as voluminous as releases.
At this point, mixes ARE releases, and it’s stupid to pretend otherwise.
There’s still no settled consensus, despite some obvious landmarks.
I may elaborate on these point-by-point here at some point; it might be fun to do so. But I also think that what I write in this space are elaborations on those points—that’s the whole idea, the fourth one especially.
You can hear all five sets below at this SoundCloud playlist.
Ben Sims, Reclaim Your City 677 (January 5)
People have good reason to think techno is a slog—even people like me who love it. But in Ben Sims’ hands, techno is consistently a joy. Two hours of, in no particular order, deep toms filtered to bits, MJ “eeh”s re-tuned till they sound like cuícas, iconic disco hooks made into stray landmarks, icicles forming on piano lines, ye olde rave-chewn spray-downs, “Guns! Guns! Guns! Guns!” Yes it matters which DJ is playing it—always.
69db (Wave Arising), Untitled 909 Podcast 256 (January 7)
Bambi, Untitled 909 Podcast 257: Live from Nowadays (NYC, rec. September 13, 2025; upl. January 12)
These are more alike than not alike, which is hardly a dismissal—as you’ve seen and will see soon, Untitled 909 is probably my favorite current podcast along with Resident Advisor’s. Chanel Kadir, who runs it, mentioned 69db to me in an interview to be published soon—he came up though Spiral Tribe, who were notorious early on for yammering 303 energy. Podcast 256 is also energetic, but in a more hypnotic gradually-building way, with pitter-patter propulsion and densely layered low end. It takes a while for the bass to come full in, but the room glows when it does. 69db refers in the SC notes to the “side of my music I call dub-technic . . . the idea was to do dub but not with reggae.” The music came out on Expressillon between 1999 and 2010. “Unfortunately, this music has never really found a home in the free party scene.” Having it all drawn down to an hour for this shimmering podcast is ideal.
The ways Podcast 256 is alike with the French DJ Bambi’s Podcast 257 is easy to enumerate: heavily narcotic, seemingly unhurried even if their BPMs are high, lots of glinting glowing atmosphere, subtly but strongly drum-circular. The Bambi set is a lot longer—two and a half hours played live at peak time (3:30 to 6) at a NYC club I’ve never visited but have a strong mind’s eye view for—and it’s also expansive, which is not a synonym for length. Or maybe it is, in the sense this stuff supports the expansion of one’s limbs to their comfortable and active limit. I think of it all as a kind of nocturnal sun-worshiping music.
DJ Travella, DJ Mag Artists to Watch 2026 (January 21)
The first time I heard a set by this Tanzanian singeli DJ (cf. BC148), I likened it fondly to a skull massage. The rippling waves of melody attached to all that percussion seeped through rather than announcing itself. Having heard a small but potent amount of classic Tanzanian guitar music over the years, I hear parallels, but I’m neither smart nor stupid enough to try and make too much of them; indeed, I’m foregrounding my reactions here as a way of putting my inexpertise on the table. It may well be that Travella’s RA mix buttered me up for this one—but this one hits me not like a series of ripples but as a giant wave, one that draws me in deeper every time. The DJ’s last word in his portion of the tentpole DJ Mag feature—“Allow this music blow your mind”—will read as cliché to the nonce and as the purest logic to anyone who’s experiencing it, as he says of the bulk of his new European fans, “for the first time.” The key word is “allow.”
Flying Lotus, The Lot Radio (January 22)
First half is moody/downtempo/low-key/but-not-trip-hop-damn-it; as my man Nate Patrin points it, “A couple of these tracks are from the OST of that sci-fi movie he made that nobody saw.” Second half goes subtly but sharply upward into house music, climaxing but hardly finishing with “Stand on the Word.” Not quite a house party, not quite a casual hang, deliciously repeatable either way. So, he’s going to do this every month now, huh?