BC179 - Five Mixes: April 2026
Sets from all over the place, plus a catchall playlist
via Discogs
I make playlists: As with its SoundCloud equivalent, I now introduce Beat Connection Five Mixes Strays on YouTube, with (so far) nine sets/mixes recently spotlighted by this newsletter, including this edition. For some fun triangulation of the first and third items below, do read Andy Beta’s superb discussion with Thurston Moore. You can purchase Beta’s great new Alice Coltrane bio here.
You can hear four of these sets (with a links to the others) at this SoundCloud playlist.
SmellsLikeJazz, #10: The 1960s Female Avant-Garde (We Are Various | WAV, April 16)
Shortly after the accompanying post went up on Substack, Philip Freeman alerted me to this, which did me a real solid. Not only is this a first-rate primer, it’s a deliberately paced and segued set. Not that surprising, given the particulars—this music in many cases was both revolutionary and part of a continuum that the early house and techno DJs heavily drew upon, even though it mostly wasn’t this particular stuff. That means we all get to discover it as a motherlode (pardon term) that it is. “Theme de Yoyo” is one of my favorite recordings of all time, but hearing an earlier collaboration with a very different vocalist is a revelation. Another clincher is that it’s heavy on tunes throughout, not just playing or singing, and never short on those, either. P.S.: WAV is a cool looking Antwerp community station.
Frankie Knuckles, Kiss Club Classics [Kiss FM, NYC] in2 David Morales, WKTU, NYC 2-19-2000 (Manny’z Tapez, upl. April 17)
No, I cannot resist a credit that goes “in2,” and hopefully neither can you. Plus, what a contrast: per Manny, “Frankie was dropping Warehouse classics on KISS FM, while David was droppin’ new jointz on WKTU.” Sure, you’ve heard Knuckles (whose set goes to @ 56:30) do this sort of thing loads of times before. But if you can resist “We Got the Funk” in any setting, then bah, you’re a Scrooge. In fact, I dare say he’s seldom (if ever) played it better than he does here—it glides in so easily it feels inevitable even though you won’t see it coming thirty seconds before it does, and the guitars feel more sharply etched than ever. And yes, the difference is of note, because the way Frankie Knuckles played records is what made him a great American artist. So is the way he makes “Nights” into “Paradise” sound like a thrill rather than a near-inevitability. Still, those grooves were heavily human, and Morales’s fifty minutes glide by on automatic. This is the exact cross-section of the clubs and the radio right that moment, most beguiling when minimalist but also expertly crossing into pop terrain, most notably with a new track that week, “Here I Am.” David’s label had released it, of course.
John Oswald, Sonic Youth: Diamond Seas (Geffen LP, rel. April 18)
I know—this isn’t a “DJ mix.” But neither were tape cutters the Latin Rascals, and if I can include them (cf. BC131), I can include this. It is sort of a gimme—each LP side (it’s a Record Store Day special) is a plunderphonic remix from a given year’s live versions of “The Diamond Sea,” 1995 and 1996. This was where SY went all the way in, proudly claiming their legacy as immersive noise-makers and also connecting to the wider sphere of live rock amp immolation through the decades, a forecast of their late-nineties reclamation of avant-composition and a celebration of their headline status of the 1995 Lollapalooza outing. John Oswald did something like this for the Grateful Dead’s Dark Star—first out in 1995 but more widely available in 1996, just like the raw material of this release, in fact. (Cosmic, man.) He sculpts them into complementary halves that go through some of the same essential crests and lulls to notably different effect. The 1995 version feels brighter and more sunshiny, the 1996 re-version more snarling and apocalyptic, then an oddly soaring long outro. But I confess—I accidentally had both sides, in separate tabs, playing at once for nearly eight minutes before I figured out why things had gotten so head-fucky. I honestly recommend it.
Edna Martinez, Champeta Global Vol. 2 (NTS Live, April 21)
Two editions ago, I mentioned Keith Harris of Racket (cf. BC177). I mention him again because he put me onto a great release. Up at number eight on his Top 50 Albums of 2025 last year was Edna Martinez Presents Picó: Sound System Culture from the Colombian Caribbean, a compilation-not-mix as vertiginous as his write-up suggests. And it’s a favor returned, since Harris also notes that he found out about Martinez from her Diblo Dibala tribute set making my 2024 Top Ten (cf. BC106). In any event, it had been too long since I’d checked out a Martinez set, and lo and behold, this one is both recent and, no surprise, a humdinger. Immediately legible to any dancer, there’s there’s real vigor in her picks and genuine momentum in how she arranges them. And moreover, they’re weird—especially toward the end.
The Advent, EPM.199 (April 29)
After all that wildly all-over worldliness, how about something stark and deliciously narrow—a shot at the end of the meal? Acid-heavy and decidedly electro, this slithering hour draws from a menu just as cross-continental as Martinez’s—more so, actually, with the distance from Colombia to Cuba slightly less than one-third the distance from Detroit to Berlin. That’s not even accounting for London, the home of Advent-man Cisco Ferreira. His mixing is hands-on and full of sudden stops and crossfades, a jolt and a pleasure. Also, I’m struck by this bit of mix-page verbiage: “Unlike some of his peers, you won’t catch Ferreira engaging in sensationalistic antics or fretting over the integrity of mainstream artists. He embodies everything you appreciate about techno, minus the unnecessary theatrics.” Dude, for real.