Enjoy a new episode in the Dekmantel Mix Series, published bi-weekly.
http://www.dekmantel.com
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Enjoy a new episode in the Dekmantel Mix Series, published bi-weekly.
http://www.dekmantel.com
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Courtesy is one of techno’s newest breakthrough stars. The Greenland born, Danish raised DJ, Ectotherm label boss and journalist first turned heads with some key online mixes in 2016 which showed she will reach for whatever works be that rave, electro or breaks. Since then she’s further established herself with her own regular NTS show and sets at key places like De School and Berghain, and in three weeks time she will play our festival in Sao Paolo. To get in you on the mood for that she’s first turned out a new mix which, as usual from Courtesy, is characterised by fascinating contrasts. It’s high in energy from the off, and races through a number of styles of house and techno that ranges from twisted to dubbed out to ghetto. Getting ever-quicker as it goes, there’s a subtle sense that you’re building towards something throughout the set. It makes it an absorbing, high octane ride that never settles in once place but at the same time feels like one complete story.
As long as Melbourne has had a house music scene, Francis Inferno Orchestra has been at the heart of it. Though now lives in Europe, the Australian’s sound is melody rich and tinged with disco dazzle when in the studio, while as a DJ he has an anything goes approach that turns up plenty of surprises. As well as co-running Superconcious Records, he releases on Let’s Play House and Drumpoet Community and has previously guessed on our Dekmantel Radio Show. For his mix, he goes sublimely slow and serene to start with. Beautiful ambient pads, twinkling keys and swooning strings encourage you to day dream before gently persuasive drums pick things up. From there, it’s an unpredictable ride full of twists and turns that one minute serves up acid, the next tribal drums, then hands in the air house. Before the end there is a return of ambient and even slow motion funk gets dropped. With spring just round the corner, this is a perfect mix to take us there.
UK artist Gatto Fritto is someone who operates in the shadows, in his own little world. The man born Ben Williams played our Selectors festival in Croatia last year and holds down residencies at Berlin institutions Sameheads and Renate, which prove why he is such a revered DJ. His work as a producer, too, has resulted in some exceptionally cosmic disco on standard bearers like International Feel and Dissident, as well as his own Fritto Morto. It’s twinkling, spine tingling stuff awash with melodies, FX and astral synths that transport you into the cosmos. A sense of frosty melody and plenty of pixelated synths characterise the nearly two hour selection he has put together for us here. It starts in abrasive and arresting fashion with serrated lines and stark drums before unravelling into sci-fi grooves then Italo, proto-disco and slippery electro. After exploring these diverse yet interconnected sound worlds for the first half, the second half races through an icy and intergalactic brand of techno that leaves you utterly breathless.
It is not the first time that we turn to a Cómeme artist for our next mix. The singular Latin American label was the first to release music by Ana Helder in 2011, and has continued to do so since. The Argentinian artist has a rough riding house sound built on kinked grooves and wonky synths. It’s uplifting and has taken her to DJ sets all round the world. Back home in Rosario she also promotes her own parties and has earned a reputation as someone with a subversive, unpredictable style. The hour she puts together here is a happy selection of upright tracks that pay no regard for genre or period: there is alternative 80s indie from Bob Chance, dubbed out drum tracks from Mr G and stripped back minimalism from Losoul and A Guy Called Gerald and its all mix up with African percussion and one of Anna’s own slippery and trippy cuts, ‘Sexe’. If Ana wasn’t on your radar before, this mix will certain ensure she stays firmly in your sights in 2018.
// 47 UMa b > DF-18 // Incoming transmission: Terence Fixmer
// OGLE-2012-BLG-0026L c > DF-18 // Incoming transmission: Patrick Russell Patrick Russell is one of the more under-the-radar DJs who hail from Detroit. The reason for that is his uncompromising style. He plays what he wants, not what he thinks you want to hear. Finally the world is catching up and the man brought up on the Midwest rave scene is making wider waves. He is a core member of the No Way Back party that reinterpret the city’s rave past for a new audience, and will be one of the many DJs playing Dekmantel Festival in August, so we invited him into our series to show off his skills. His sixty minute mix is a heady world of creepy and paranoid techno. From the sort of warped, 4am soundtracks that makes best sense in a pitch black club to brain frying and peak time stuff that bashes you round the head, it’s always on the move and always keeping you guessing.
// Kepler-61 b > DF-18 // Incoming transmission: Job Sifre Another of the many standout DJs to emerge from the ever-fertile Amsterdam scene, Job Sifre is now rightfully starting to get props from outside the city. Helping him on the way is his monthly Red Light Radio show, which shows off his cosmic and electronic take on synth heavy house. He has backed that up with compelling sets at places like De School and Salon Zur Wilde Renate, as well as with a fresh new wave and house EP that was the first release on Interstellar Funk’s new label, Artificial Dance. Job will play with us at Dekmantel Festival in August, so first offers up a snapshot of his current sound. Over the course of nearly two hours, he takes his time to go from laidback and horizontal to more upright and drum lead. The sounds are often laden with icy synths, the drums are heavyweight and the atmospheres are spooky and sci-fi. His is a truly electronic world devoid of human life and it touches on new wave, macho disco, cosmic house and prickly dub in frosty and freaky ways.
// KIC 8012732 b > DF-18 // Incoming transmission: Skatebård As is often the way with artists who hail from the chilly climes of northern Europe, Skatebard deals in a cosmic brand of disco. Usually coloured with elements of Detroit house and neo-Italo, his sound has given rise to hugely sought after mini-albums—such as 2002’s recently re-released Skateboarding Was A Crime (In 1989)—as well as plenty of functional yet emotive 12”s. Next to his own Digitalo Enterprises label, he has worked on the likes of Sex Tags Mania and Full Pupp, has produced with DJ Sotofett and is no stranger to a sense of fun when it comes to DJing. Midway through December last year he played, as he does regularly, at Fettschmelze in Karlsruhe. More than three hours of the set was recorded and is presented here as a fine overview of Skatebard’s broad skills as a selector. From carefree, key-laced disco to cosmic curveballs via sleek and futuristic house, it is a freewheeling mix that manages to glide effortlessly between sounds and scenes.
// Kepler-737 b > DF-18 // Incoming transmission: Ece Özel We head to Istanbul for our next mix, and it comes from Ece Özel. A key figure on her native scene thanks to her Ozel Zevkler party and residency at MiniMüzikhol, she is celebrated for her weird and wonderful take on electronic music. It’s won her the attention of Boiler Room, and encompasses experimental, lo-fi, ambient, acid and plenty of oddities in between, but all ties together thanks to the underlying sense of mood. Ece will be representing at Dekmantel Festival in August, so you can really get to grips with her sound. Before that comes her podcast for our series, and it’s one that builds suspense slowly but surely with sparse, stripped back rhythms that always twist and turn. There’s wonky techno next to kaleidoscopic electronic house, crisp new wave joined to unhinged drum tracks and even hands in the air disco. Always tied together by an occult and unsettling sense of being on the edge, it’s a a set with Özel’s notably unhinged aesthetic stamped all over it.
// Gliese 3293 c > DF-18 // Incoming transmission: Broken English Club roken English Club is a project by Oliver Ho that explores the “dark friction” between man and machine. It has spawned two albums, most recently June’s The English Beach on L.I.E.S., which soundtracked the desolate scenes of his surroundings with eerie experimental techno. Heavy on apocalyptic synths and doom laden drums, and occasionally run through with melodic optimism, it’s a brilliant testament to Ho’s evocative studio skills after ten years of making more straight up techno as Raudive. Elements of EBM and industrial come into focus on the album, as they do in the mix he has put together for us. In just over an hour, plenty of angular grooves, slapping drums and cold, chilly metallic surfaces unfold in dystopian fashion. Starting off sparse and menacing with French vocals and synths which survey the landscape, eventually the machines take over and grow ever more wild so that you end up in a dehumanised world of reverb, manic pixelated melodies and whirring lines that have a life of their own.