Berlin’s HÖR—a DJ platform broadcasting from a closet-sized studio that resembles a public restroom—is heavy on the high-energy sounds at the moment fashionable throughout Europe: techno, trance, drum’n’bass, post-everything membership. In comparison with the depth of these kinds, Jana Rush’ HÖR set is unusually understated. The Chicago DJ-producer’s picks run a lot quick, however her adventurous tackle footwork is coiled and airtight, looping brief, syncopated snippets of drums, keys, and vocals into tight tangles that creep ahead with excessive care. It’s gratifying to look at her combine: She works with the focus of a scientist, setting cue factors, sliding faders, and tweaking EQs with a supreme sense of management.

Autechre: Combine for Neuvoids

It’s not daily we get a DJ combine from Autechre, so it appears becoming that after they do flip up, it’s on a little-known streaming platform with just some hundred Twitter followers. They begin out with the B-boy fascinations of their youth and switch up some actual gems, like Ishtar’s trippy French electro pop from 1982. As their zigzags get extra excessive, they make some stunning juxtapositions: Swedish digital weirdos Sluta Leta slide into Westside Gunn’s “Good Evening”; a psychedelic Stranglers monitor from 1981 provides technique to Spunk’s easy-listening funk from the identical yr. And simply when Bob James’ “Nautilus” has you questioning for those who’ve switched SoundCloud streams, they arrive again to more and more twitchy electro jams after which shut out with a half hour of noise and ambient. On paper, it may not make lots of sense, however this combine’s twists and turns are refreshingly unpredictable.

Helado Negro: Phonic Mirror Half 11

Helado Negro kicked off his Phonic Mirror combine sequence 5 years in the past, promising “plenty of weirdness and many pleasure.” Since then, it has changed into a set of snapshots of the artist’s pursuits and inspirations. Some episodes observe a broad theme like autumnal music; others have gathered his vinyl purchases from round Brooklyn and Queens. The newest installment follows a narrower path than ordinary: It’s all reggae from the ’80s and ’90s, heavy on synth-soaked dancehall and springy digidub. He kicks off with an absolute day-brightener about wet days, goes traipsing by way of the playful toasting of Duchess Shine’s “Candy Speaking,” and takes in pleasant covers of “Simply Gimme the Evening,” “Nothing Compares 2 U,” and “Legalize It.” For followers of the “Sleng Teng” riddim or Trustworthy Jon’s Watch How the Folks Dancing compilation, it’s a feast of Normal MIDI presets and sugary Casio tones, and as summery a combination as you possibly can hope for.

Barker: 3024 Tapes 025

Lately, Berlin producer Sam Barker has developed a singular fashion of drum-free techno, during which flickering synths largely substitute the percussion. On this combine for Martyn’s 3024 label, he goes in the wrong way. Mining a seam of tracks between 140 and 160 BPM—“this house between techno and jungle that doesn’t revolve round straight kicks,” as he places it—he leans arduous on percussive depth. The primary a part of the set strikes by way of bass-heavy tracks with a dubstep undercurrent, with glowing chords sometimes slicing by way of the gloom. Midway by way of, issues get intense, as heavy hand percussion slams into Center Japanese drumming, quick techno, punishing electro, and even a latter-day remix of certainly one of grime’s founding paperwork. The set’s exhilarating vitality is matched by Barker’s unusually clean mixing and unerring sense of tempo; the plush finale makes for the right mild comedown, and a return to Barker’s usually harmonic wheelhouse.

Fever Ray: RA.883

Fever Ray’s Karin Dreijer groups up with the manufacturing duo Aasthma on a modern, exhilarating set of left-field bangers. Avant-garde African sounds play an outsized position, significantly the bazillion-BPM blur of singeli artists like Sisso, Jay Mitta, and DJ Travella; French-Congolese duo Tshegue drop punked-up percussive membership sounds, whereas South Africa’s Sho Madjozi invokes WWE’s John Cena in a hypnotic music harking back to DJ Mujava’s “Township Funk.” Fever Ray followers might be most excited by a pair of unreleased remixes: Slovakian DJ Nifra’s tackle “What They Name Us” is true in time for the trance revival, whereas Avalon Emerson comes down from her dream-pop cloud to ship a troublesome, muscular “Carbon Dioxide” rework.

Huerco S.: @ Podlasie, Chicago 21.04.2023

In his personal productions, and with the releases on his West Mineral Ltd. label, Huerco S. usually gravitates towards the hazy extremes of ambient, the place element appears to dissolve in a sooty murk. However put him in a membership context, and he can bang. This practically two-hour recording from Chicago’s Podlasie begins out heavy—the introductory monitor seems like assault planes on the horizon—and simply will get heavier from there. Breakbeats, UK storage, techno, bass music, no matter you wish to name the coiled syncopations of Peverelist’s “Pulse I”—all of them get swirled collectively in a mass of jabbing drums and dank, sticky low finish. Issues get significantly enjoyable within the second half: DJ Babatr’s raptor-house edit of LFO’s basic “LFO” injects a dose of déjà vu; Windowseeker’s “Aspire+” channels the trippiness of psytrance; and Chicago rapper Lil Jay’s “Spherical N Spherical” makes for a second of unhinged levity earlier than the set disappears down a passageway of Autechre-inspired fractals.

Otik: RA.882

Bristol’s Otik describes his Resident Adviser podcast as “music I’d wish to hear at a warehouse social gathering at 3 a.m.”—a deceptively mild description for a decidedly heavyweight sound. Like his new Xoul Entice EP, his picks are inclined to mix rolling drums with ethereal pads or vocal loops, and the sense of uplift solely will increase as he gathers steam. Whereas Otik is named a standard-bearer for a specific pressure of UK dance music, a lot of the set appears like a transatlantic dialog, with the archetypically UK sounds of jungle and storage balanced out by samples of iconic American tracks like Blaze’s “Lovelee Dae” or—in a very genius second towards the tip—Nina Sky’s slinky “Transfer Ya Physique,” whose skipping chorus provides much more momentum to his powerhouse grooves.

GRRL: Crack Combine 497

North Carolina producer GRRL’s latest EP for Jubilee’s Magic Metropolis label is a hard-charging amalgam of electro, bleep techno, and straight-up rave, and their Crack Combine isn’t any much less intense. However whereas her EP is break up between thrill-ride exhilaration and darker shades of paranoia, their picks discover a wider vary of feelings. Throwback electro jams like Human Rise up’s sashaying “Maintain On” would possibly encourage manic grins, and the breakbeats of Arkajo’s “Earth” (sped as much as breakneck velocity) name again to the darkling pleasures of basic tech step. However peer beneath the gnarled traces of GRRL’s intricately twisted percussion and also you’ll discover deeper, extra contemplative moods in cuts like Skee Masks’s “Reviver.” The set goes a lot arduous, however there’s a welcome sense of subtlety in even its most bracing passages.

Kornél Kovács: PMx10

Kornél Kovács often performs home (or at the least house-adjoining) music, however on this modern, 46-minute set for fellow Swede Peder Mannerfelt’s combine sequence, the Studio Barnhus co-founder digs into drum’n’bass. It’s not a complete curveball; rolling breakbeat rhythms fueled “Get Goofy,” an upbeat spotlight from his 2022 album Resort Koko, and as a teen, Kovács bought his begin taking part in drum’n’bass on Swedish nationwide radio. He runs the gamut of the breakbeat universe right here: A couple of basic cuts get rinsed, like DJ Hype’s 1994 anthem “Roll the Beats,” however principally he retains his eye on what’s taking place now, like DJ Swisha’s sneaky flip of Don Toliver’s “5X” and Minor Science’s virtually cartoonishly kinetic “Workahol,” the brilliant colours and distinctive hooks giving the set its playful aptitude.

Gold Panda: XLR8R Podcast 976

That Gold Panda’s Derwin Schlecker is an unfailing purveyor of vibes has lengthy been clear from his productions, which channel Dilla and 4 Tet in glowing, sun-kissed loops. However probably the most placing facet of this set is how he makes sudden connections between such disparate materials. Tapping a throughline of pulse and burble, he spends the primary a part of the combination pursuing lush polyrhythms by way of jazz drummer Sarathy Korwar and the jazz-influenced Burnt Friedman; later, he traces a line between the snapping dembow of Equiknoxx’s “Fly Away” and the rippling tabla of Ravi Shankar’s “Tala-Tabla Tarang,” then extends the identical line into the liquid droplets of Masakatsu Takagi, Tortoise, and Susumu Yokota. It’s as rigorously thought by way of as it’s intuitive, providing contemporary perspective on outdated faves.

Jake Muir: Idea Remedy 51

Even after listening to Jake Muir’s newest combine a number of occasions, I’d be hard-pressed to let you know precisely what’s taking place in it. The Berlin-based musician has a style for quietly spellbinding sounds and textures, and the affected person contact with which he weaves them collectively is equally delicate. This set is fluidly blended that you simply not often can inform the place one monitor ends and one other begins, or whether or not three or 4 various things is perhaps taking place directly. You get tendrils of soprano saxophone swirled right into a pool of drone; foghorn pulses in a discipline of shimmer; and resonant chimes submerged in splashing water. Discussing the rise of wellness philosophies in ambient music, Muir notes that, given the present political local weather, “possibly we ought to be making and highlighting music that has a bit extra company.” Accordingly, there are hints of disturbance beneath the floor right here, fascinating problems that solely deepen the set’s magnificence.

Name Tremendous: PURE Visitor.034

It appears like Cocteau Twins are having a minor second in digital music: Each month it looks like I hear a Cocteaus monitor slipped into an ambient combine, after which there’s Avalon Emerson, who cited the Scottish group’s ethereal sound as an affect on her personal shift from techno to dream pop. Now Name Tremendous says that they endeavored to construct a complete set round Seefeel cofounder Mark Clifford’s 1995 remix of the Cocteau Twins’ “Violaine.” This combine for Taipei’s Pure G isn’t an ambient set, although: As all the time, Name Tremendous delivers floor-centric cuts with an immersive pull, protecting snapping bass music (Arkajo’s “Tape 17”), slippery techno (Leigh Dickson’s 2002 minimize “Reward,” divinely remixed by Child Ford), and rugged breaks (Kasra V’s “Voice Be aware to Self”). As powerful because the grooves get, they’re virtually all the time overlaid with dreamy, shimmering layers of synths; that is music for shifting to, but it surely additionally facilitates getting misplaced in your thoughts. Nowhere does that play out extra unusually than when he lastly drops that Cocteaus remix, about three-quarters of the best way by way of, pairing Elizabeth Fraser’s dulcet voice with a juggernaut of a techno monitor.

Tristan Arp: 3024 TAPES 003

Tristan Arp’s final album, 2021’s Sculpturegardening, used ambient tones to specific complicated rhythms, and one of the vital notable latest albums on his Human Pitch label, Salamanda’s Ashbalkum, was equally gauzy. However there’s nothing restrained concerning the Mexico Metropolis producer’s visitor combine for Martyn’s 3024 Tapes sequence, which folds collectively explosive, broken-beat membership music with wiry techno, voluminous dub, ragga jungle, and 180-BPM drum’n’bass. He drops just a few standouts alongside the best way—South African rapper Sho Madjozi and French producer She’s Drunk’s “Amadoda” is a percussive party-starter—however the true deal with is listening to how neatly he weaves collectively such tangled polyrhythms.

Doc Sleep: Sunday Combine

Doc Sleep has a finely tuned ear for low-key digital sounds: You’ll be able to hear it in her curation of Jacktone, the label she co-founded, in addition to in her personal productions, which name again to the leftfield techno of the ’90s. She takes a number of steps additional left in her Sunday Combine for Crack. She begins with a base of ambient jazz—liquid harps from Nailah Hunter and Nala Sinephro, a stunningly atmospheric Rhodes fantasia by George Duke—and builds out from there with picks from Low, Junior Boys, and Devendra Banhart & Noah Georgeson that sit within the interstices between ambient and indie. Within the second half she slips sideways into slow-motion funk from then and now, pitting Laurie Anderson in opposition to Afrikan Sciences. The spiritual-jazz finale drives house the relaxed and refreshing weekend temper.

Kassem Mosse: Truancy 301

Germany’s Kassem Mosse, a staple of vaunted lo-fi home label Workshop, has strayed into some fairly murky waters lately, and he drifts out to sea as soon as extra with this Truancy combine. It’s nonetheless a dance set, filled with muscular machine grooves and peppered with cuts from like-minded souls like Omar-S, whose 2022 drums-and-voice minimize “Can’t Clarify” opens the proceedings on a ghostly be aware. However he tends to gravitate towards ethereal, eerie tracks crammed with empty house: There’s a haunted-house vibe to at least one lurching minimize suffused in evil muttering; one other affords a dank, dubby spin on techno that’s nothing however hi-hats and bass. He provides free rein to his psychedelic instincts with a splash of dubbed-out horns in a fake-out about two-thirds of the best way by way of, solely to lock right into a ruminative deep-house finale, squeezing each drop of tone shade from a paltry piano loop. It’s basic Kassem Mosse, discovering the expressive potential within the driest, most desiccated sounds. And if it’s KM’s atmospheric facet you’re after, don’t miss the fluid, post-Balearic currents of his Stora Skuggan set, which sounds prefer it’s been concocted out of watercolor paints and Play-Doh.

Nyokabi Kariũki: Sunday Combine

Steve Reich’s iconic “Come Out”—which loops a snippet of a younger sufferer of police violence saying, “I needed to, like, open the bruise up and let a few of the bruise blood come out to point out them”—takes on a brand new significance because the opening monitor in Nyokabi Kariũki’s Sunday Combine for Crack. The Kenyan experimental musician’s new album Feeling Physique charts her personal expertise of lengthy COVID, a illness that some victims have struggled to persuade medical professionals is a respectable illness with tangible signs. Kariũki’s album is a therapeutic journey that rejects hackneyed wellness clichés, and her combine follows swimsuit; there may be as a lot stress in these otherworldly ambient picks as there may be tranquility. She favors acoustic devices with a vividly bodily presence, like Mabe Fratti’s cello and Bendik Giske’s baritone saxophone, which she balances with extra ethereal parts, just like the layered voices and birdsong of her personal “Equator Track.” It’s a superbly fluid set, so it’s solely becoming that it wraps up with Feeling Physique closing monitor “Nazama,” a music that equates therapeutic with flowing rivers.

AceMo: AceMo @ Howard’s (Austin, TX)

When New York’s AceMo touched down in Austin, Texas, to play the January version of a celebration known as Thank You for Sweating, the administration busted out a tape deck to protect the event. The consequence: AceMo @ Howards -TYFS, a 90-minute set of deep, pumping home music neatly divided throughout two sides of a cassette. From the pictures of the joint, Howard’s undoubtedly appears like a sweatbox, and AceMo got here ready. The A-side stretch is a protracted, gently sloping on-ramp lined with moody, immersive cuts like Mike Huckaby’s “Baseline 88” and Ron Trent and Chez Damier’s everlasting “Untiled A1,” from 1994, whereas the B-side subtly notches up the depth, tipping from basic American strains of dance music—Kyle Corridor’s Midwestern funk; a Boricua anthem from Strictly Rhythm’s Uncommon Arts—into slipperier, UKG-tinged grooves. They’re all massive, chunky tunes, flush with midrange tone shade, and AceMo blends them with distinctive finesse.

Queen Asher ft. Rehema Tajiri: Hör Berlin