Told you I had a backlog. A couple emerged more recently, true. But chronology is malleable, as any historian will tell you. Music is time travel anyway. The fun of DJ sets is in hearing where they go—the whole “take you on a journey” routine. If I only listened to DJs with the same taste as mine, I’d never listen to any DJs, and I’d never learn anything. I fear for the latter even more than the former.
Which brings us to my man Sherburne’s A-plus broadside about music’s blessed un-solvability, and the people we have been cursed with who think otherwise. I like neophilia in principle, until it turns into this kind of thing. I particularly like Phil’s challenge: cure cancer and then you can talk about anything else you want, but only then.
Anyway, the backlog. Engaging with it helps guard against that sort of tech-driven, inhuman Toxic Newness. Besides, there are only so many hours one can spend writing. Music is for enjoying.
You can hear all five sets at this SoundCloud playlist.
Nak, Live at Moniker ’26 (Victoria, Australia, rec. April 4, upl. August 3)
From Melbourne, Isabel Nakonieczny writes: “class is in session, and today we’re learning about textures. recorded live from 03:00 - 05:00 in the warehouse.” The thrill of the set is that both descriptions are true at once: it’s minimalist and detail-rich, the kicks and subs encompassing and reverberant, the voices (note: not “singers”) knock around the mix like disco-ball light strays, and the mood utterly late-night and head-down, the definition of warehouse techno. The beat speeds up, the synths grow steelier, pure FX take the stage, and there’s even some D&B. It represents another step in the low-ending of techno overall, one that earns the ultimate Beat Connection seal of approval, a flattering comparison to Perlon.
Eydn, Ethereal Mix 103 (Ethereal Grooves, April 7)
If “mumblecore” didn’t already have a fixed meaning, it would do handily as a shorthand for this set. A Belgian duo I’ve never encountered as performers, Eydn subtitled this assemblage “Sad Ballads for Countryside Wandering,” which is on the nose in a way the music isn’t. The selections are elliptical even when their structures are clear and pop; all of them have a telltale layer of dust, or hiss, or grainy reverb, or whatever. There’s a lot of distorted guitar, too, but it folds into the overall amniotic swoon like driftwood overtaken by the waves. It also kicks Boy Harsher’s Fader Mix (September 10) about ten blocks down the road.
Yu Su, Gop Tun Festival (São Paolo, April 11 or 12, upl. August 10)
Quite the lineup this one had: Jayda G, Optimo (Espacio), Steffi x Virginia, DJ Heartstring, Dekmantel Soundsystem, Paula Tape, and the other two that I’ve heard: Mad Professor (eh) and Mount Kimbie (very even but builds gradually and, toward the end, somewhat powerfully but not enough). Jackknifing between techno, house, “something that feels like a breakbeat-inflected MPB edit” (copyright Michael McKinney), a freakin’ “Glamorous Life” cover (I’ve never heard a bad version of it, this included), and floating electro-pop with a long outro that pays zero mind to anybody’s dance floor, there is so much range, so many weird choices, such try-it-all energy here that, by the lights of many, it ran away with the festival. I often praise DJs who create a singular line with their selections; it’s hard to take as many left turns as Yu Su does here while maintaining both energy and expression.
Polygonia, Guestmix for Martha on BBC Radio 1 (April 15)
Long sets give a DJ options and range. But here, in what is billed as “celebrat[ing] fifteen years of Livity Sound” (there is one ten-track run of tracks on that label, though not nearly all of it), Polygonia offers a smorgasbord that’s no less bountiful for being a hair under thirty minutes. No wonder: I’ve played this set off and on for months, and its fierce energy always travels—as if she were playing regular-length tracks with a lot of variety between them. Well, her selections are self-evidently varied, but not until writing this had I checked the track list: forty-two titles. Rather than widespread and leisurely paced, it’s intricately stitched—and still feels expansive and unhurried, even when the snares are playing double time and the subs bubble and weave.
Francesca Lombardo, Echoteca: Echoes of Spiders (Open Lab Radio, Ibiza, May)
Somehow this got into my clutches and stayed put, and it is only recently that I’ve come to understand why: the groove it kicks off with reminds me of eighties Prince. Given the personnel behind Lombardo’s selections, it’s not hard to grok why: whether it was the selector’s aim or not (probably not), chances are you’ll get a little bit of that strut (and that hi-hat work) if you dote upon his epigones. But it doesn’t stay there, or anywhere else, too long, going mainly house-ward but with the same fizz. Lombardo has a lot to play, her joins also entice, the set builds up a mild froth—it’s for the radio, not the floor, and it works.
Further listening and reading
Perlon: mixes, tracks, comparisons: BC032, BC151, BC161, BC183, BC184, BC193
Ethereal Mix: BC181
Gop Tun Festival: BC129
Polygonia: BC077