BC184 - Five Mixes: May 2026
Let’s hear it for the low end
Ripperton
We have a theme! I don’t mean that everything here absolutely crushes; I mean they use low end interestingly both as music and as history. My complaint: Unnecessary colons, especially following lowercased words. Just stop! It looks ridiculous! Sadly, I will faithfully reproduce it in the name of the historical record, and hate myself for it.
On the one hand, DJ sets are always on the move; there’s always more of them, their publicity cycle, har har, are relative blips. Sure, I’ve called mixes essentially releases now (cf. BC173), but those cycles move fast too. On the other hand, DJ sets are always new to someone. These are not new—in fact, I’m working on a handful of entries playing catch-up with May. But they also have little to do with the news cycle—which is to say that the new Bangalter @ The Lot Radio will have to wait, though not too long.
My favorite of these is the one pictured above—and if, like me, you hadn’t kept up with this person in a while, don’t worry, he’s got 48 hours of mixes waiting for you.
You can hear all five sets at this SoundCloud playlist.
vers, untitled 909 podcast 271 (live @ freifeld / open ground / 06.12.2025) (Untitled 909, April 30)
By “low end” here I mean that for much of the first half, it appears almost as AMSR rather than as chest-concave inducement, and even when its expanse bubbles and swells, it’s one element in a broad, twinkling cosmos. Even when the b-lines snorkel and lead, they also hide out for a while. It’s obviously minimalist but also quite busy in places, in ways that put me in the mind of Perlon.
Ila Brugal, NTS Guide to: DMZ (NTS Radio, May 6)
By “low end” here I mean foundational mid-2000s dubstep, as conjured into being, in a manner of speaking, by its key Bristol outlet. What’s striking after all these years, even if it’s not surprising, is how close to Jamaican dub, to reggae, it remains. The order of the tracks is fetching unto itself and seems to tell a chronological story even if the tracks are not themselves in running order; it’s become a pleasure-listen go-to. Vocal hook, close to the end: “I see the rain come down when the sun is shining.” That feels like this music in toto. (Congratulations, by the way, to Lauren Martin, who is turning her landmark “Oral History of Dubstep” for Vice into the book we all deserve. More on that in this precinct, as well.)
Harmony, Unreleased 90’s Dubplate NTS Mix (May 9)
By “low end” here I mean vintage drum & bass and its big sub drops. Here, they form the bones of twenty-one acetate exclusives that are sometimes ID’ed only by artist and occasionally not at all—and that are so ridiculously ebullient that even when they audibly postdate 1996 they still predate it in spirit. Sorry, did I say “drum & bass”? I meant jungle—even after 1996.
HLRTY, The Sound of Pineapple Records (Mixmag, May 20)
By “low end” here I mean the kind that’s meant for feeling more than hearing and partying more than parsing. All over the place style-wise, because a good time is where you find it. The label being summarized is well named: tropical, spiky, tartness enhancing the sweetness. The vibe, as summed up in a lyric: “Exciting times/Enticing dimes.”
Ripperton, EGLO.070 (Electronic Groove, May 22)
By “low end” here I mean something more historically rooted than anything front-loading the present day. In a phrase, trip-hop (cf. BC176)—a term I recently reclaimed on behalf of, yep, BoC for RS. (Justin B. Hampton respectfully demurred with me on this, for the record.) I’m going to claim it on behalf of this set, as well, and not just because it evokes a mature person’s 5 a.m. episode of Solid Steel and/or The Private Press. One key difference: when the latter dips into the archives for haunting voice snippets to tie things together, their lack of context entices. When Rippterton does something similar, it’s with bare facts about digitally enhanced identity (and other) theft. It’s chilling in a different way.