Dekmantel Mix Series Archive 1-500

Latest Episodes:

Dekmantel Podcast 236 - Deena Abdelwahed Jun 24, 2019

Show notes

Deena Abdelwahed has a two way relationship with music: in her early years back home in Tunisia when she programmed nights at Nüba, she was known for introducing the likes of footwork, UK bass and kuduro along side experimental house and techno to the local scene. Meanwhile, her own music on labels like InFine has introduced European audiences to bass and techno with plenty of fascinating Arab influences. This was best showcased on her Khonnar album late last year, which came with plenty of inventive rhythms, weird sound designs and generally challenging musical ideas. Abdelwahed’s mix for us comes ahead of her performance at Dekmantel Festival in August and showcases her ability to twist basslines and layer in spiritual ambiance to absorbing effect. It manages to be punchy and physical yet thoughtful throughout, and also comes with plenty of the Arab influences - vocals, instrumentation, rhythms - that make her work so standout.

Dekmantel Podcast 235 - Jex Opolis Jun 17, 2019

Show notes

Just last month, Canadian Jex Opolis debuted on our label with a cosmic and feel good electro EP that came washed in Italo influences. It was the latest in a long line of colourful releases—largely on his own Good Timin’ label—that have explored a timeless mix of synth pop, leftfield, house and nu disco since 2013. As someone with a background playing in bands, he knows how to properly arrange a track, which always shows, and he even uses his own voice for extra layers of personalisation. His mix for us is a fun one: vocals ricochet around over boogie basslines, tropical percussions flails away next to glistening Casio keys and day-glo disco is never far away. House grooves take over later on and power through with more lush chords and it all makes for exactly the sort of thing you want to hear on an open-air, sun-kissed festival stage.

Dekmantel Podcast 234 - J-Zbel Jun 10, 2019

Show notes

French trio J-Zbel keeps it low key. The unknown collective from Lyon has released exclusively on Brothers From Different Mothers since 2015, and in May this year offered up a fantastic debut album. The oddly titled Dog's Fart Is So Bad The Cat Throws Up was an eclectic double 12” mash up of rave, hardcore, breakbeats, acid and techno that is full throttle and uncompromisingly high energy. With little else to go on but for their music, it’s fair to say J-Zbel enjoy the sweat and intensity of the dance floor and are not afraid to take musical cues from outlier scenes like trance and gabber. That lends their music a thrilling and unpredictable edge that also permeates this podcast: it’s 1 hour 40 minutes of tempo hopping, mood switching sounds that are have your hands pumping to rave one minute and your body skanking to some abstract future grime the next. It’s a refreshing and widescreen take on strobe lit styes that hits like a train.

Dekmantel Podcast 233 - Mozhgan Jun 03, 2019

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Iranian born Mozhgan has a love of dark and ghoulish sounds that always play out when she’s on the decks. In 2011, she started her own We Are Monsters party in San Francisco and it very much went against the grain, mostly thanks to her own definitive sets which draw on 80s synths and vintage hardware as well as exotic and ethnic rhythms, cold wave sounds and industrial textures. Since then she has established herself on the global circuit with sets at cult places like Burning Man and Panorama Bar. She will join us at Dekmantel Festival later this summer and tastes us with what to expect with this new mix. It’s a rugged and low slung affair with jerking body music and frosted synths making for an alien vibe throughout. While often abstract and desolate, there are moments of sci-fi beauty and heady depths along the way that make this mix a cinematic experience from start to finish.

Dekmantel Podcast 232 - Territroy May 27, 2019

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Territroy is a coming together of long time techno innovator Stathis Kalatzis and Panagiotis Melidis, who is best known as Larry Gus from his work on DFA. This new collaboration explores the similarities and differences between the two distinctive artists: the club focussed drums and physicality of the former, and the meticulous song craft and chord structure of the latter. It has resulted in a brand new album, Skulls & Plants—due in June on our own UFO label—that explores rugged rhythm, dark internal spaces and twisted synth work that is a full of beautiful contrasts. That distinctive duality and sense of split personality is clear to see in the mix they have put together for us. And few in the series have started as wildly, with freeform jazz expressionism bursting out of the speakers before dying away to reveal a loose and tropical rhythm littered with percussion and hand drums. Looseness and, frankly, weirdness, characterises the next couple of hours as psyched-out synths and manic drumming, computer meltdowns and more radical jazz stylings all intertwine with each other in truly beguiling fashion. If you like your music to be challenging and rule breaking, this is the one for you.

Dekmantel Podcast 231 - Job Jobse May 20, 2019

Show notes

Today we’re all super hyped for for Lente Kabinet this weekend so to get us even more excited we’ve got Job Jobse making his entry to the series. He will play a closing set at the festival and as resident at De School is a master for serving up the perfect record at the perfect time. Initially a slow burner, he’s long been loved by Amsterdam locals for his richly melodic take on house, techno, Italo and disco, and himself is happy to call it trance. It’s certainly a spell being and emotional style that characterises his work here. With something of an old school slant, there are stiff vocal cuts and robotic grooves that slowly loosen up and turn to more hands in the air and zoned out fair before getting more sci-fi and occult later on. As ever with Jobse, it’s feel good and fun without being obvious.

Dekmantel Podcast 230 - Cera Khin May 13, 2019

Show notes

After a few years bubbling under, Cera Khin could well be about to breakthrough. And few deserve it more than the Tunisian born, Berlin based artist as she is busy on many different fronts, from hosting radio shows on NTS and Noods to running her own LazyTapes label. It has put out music she has made with Ossia as well as solo 12”s from Peder Mannerfelt, but her has not as yet showcased the full breadth of her tastes which range from Afro to Egyptian grooves, grime, rave and ambient. This mix is just as wild and full on from the off, but more directly focussed on the dance floor. High energy techno ranges from mutant to acid to hardcore, with corrugated ghetto funk and euphoric rave all mix in with tight and technical skills. It’s a blistering introducing to how Khin sounds in the club and is a great way to kick start your week.

Dekmantel Podcast 229 - Mall Grab May 06, 2019

Show notes

There is an effectiveness and simplicity to Mall Grab’s house music that very quickly made him a star. The artist from an Australian town makes tracks as dusty as homeland, but imbued with feel good melodies, irresistible drums and smart samples that elevated them above pure tools. This raw, instinctive, unfussy sound has found him on labels like Looking For Trouble as well as the Steel City Discs label he runs with Jarred Kennedy and Jackson Fitzsimmons. Back in February he stepped out with an EP under his own name in a mission of “self-discovery” and it’s a journey the world continues to be closely tuned in to. His mix is a high octane selection of brilliantly physical sounds. From supersized house to throwback breakbeats, he slams it all together with a fist pumping efficiency that means two hours race by in a flash. It’s a fun mix, too, with old school rave flavours, saw tooth stabs and bumping kicks all brimming with the sort of life that makes Mall Grab such an appealing and accessible talent.

Dekmantel Podcast 228 - Kampire Apr 29, 2019

Show notes

Kampire has been bringing the authentic sound of East Africa to Europe for a few years now. She was born in Uganda and raised in Zambia but paints a weird and wonderful musical picture that draws on Congolese rhythms, tropical bass and Afro-pop. Outside of music this core member of Uganda’s Nyege Nyege collective is a writer and activist who is fighting marginalisation and oppression and has an infectious energy that carries over onto stage as she platforms various underrepresented sounds, scenes and artists. Her punch one hour mix is a succinct snapshot of her sound. It takes us direct to her African heartland through a series poly-rhythmic beats and tumbling basslines that cannot fail to get you pump up and wiggling your behind. From restlessly energetic tracks to sun-kissed township sounds via hyper-driven futurism it’s a white knuckle ride that will have you on the edge of your seat.

Dekmantel Podcast 227 - Nu Guinea Apr 22, 2019

Show notes

Nu Guinea came together over a love of studio jam sessions. The Berlin based Italians fuse live instrumentals and synthesisers that journey to far corners fo the musical world, from weird disco to exotica, world grooves via ethno rhythms. Their most adventurous work has come in the form of albums on their own NG Records as well as Early Sounds Recordings, one of which found them rewire original Tony Allen drum recordings with their own jazz-funk vibes. In the mix for us this week they stir up a steamy summer session of boogie bass, township funk and squelchy synth goodness. It’s 90 minutes of storytelling music that speaks of a lifetime of digging deep into local sounds and scenes and stitching them all together with the sort of underlying grooves that transcend boundaries and bring people together under the sun.

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