nice! 'next of kin' was even better though..


All love is mighty. This is made for loving a cheeky 'floor.

Love this! in my traxsource cart as we speak

Ashland Mines, AKA Total Freedom, AKA Big Gay Idiot DJ, AKA Bobby Beethoven, is one of the best and most influential DJs of the 21st century. Starting out at pioneering parties like Mustache Mondays and Wildness (which he cofounded with Wu Tsang)—and a regular at GHE20G0TH1K—Mines helped to define the style that would become known, however cringe-inducingly, as experimental club or deconstructed club, directly inspiring fellow visionaries like Arca. 

Like some of the best DJs before him, Mines uses the CDJs as an instrument, but that doesn't mean just fancy tricks and looping. Instead, he artfully throws together clashing sounds—effects, samples, monologues, pop and R&B acapellas, and beats that run the gamut from dancehall to kuduro to breaks and techno. He's not afraid of the grotesquerie of human life and movement (just check out the monologue at the beginning of this mix), and he likes to push buttons. Once he put on a party where dancing wasn't allowed. Some of his sets are intentionally anxiety-inducing, evoking horror movies and modern classical composers like Penderecki, while others are bouncy and ebullient, weaving between genres and tempos like an old-school platformer. The best are both.

On Mines's RA Podcast—a milestone 900th in the series—he shows off this inimitable style, sharpened and reinforced over a decade-and-a-half of playing some of the world's best parties, fashion shows, you name it. He's the kind of DJ who creates his own music as he goes along. He makes you hear old tracks—especially pop music and R&B—in a whole new way. Titled "Cursed Piercing," this is a near-hour of controlled chaos that'll confound you at one moment and deeply move you the next.

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/900

RA podcast

RA.900 Bobby Beethoven (FKA Total Freedom)

New York City selector Sausha sounds the alarm with a high-velocity rush of sleaze, sweat and sirens.

https://www.factmag.com/2023/11/20/fact-mix-sausha/

Fact Mixes

Fact Mix 935: Sausha (Nov '23)

"I didn't see myself in French electronic music." The Parisian artist talks about representation, Southern rap and Notting Hill Carnival's enduring influence on her music live from C2C Festival.

Crystelle Oyiri, the artist otherwise known as Crystallmess, has had a circuitous route through dance music. In this Exchange recorded live at C2C Festival with Whitney Wei, the  Ivoirian-Guadeloupean artist discusses how she never saw herself represented in French techno, where artists like Daft Punk reigned supreme. "When you don't see yourself, you can't tell yourself that [music] is what you want to do," she reflects. Instead, she fell in love with Southern rap and artists like DJ Screw, who ignited her passion for music before she began experimenting with beats for the dance floor.

Today, Oyiri is a full-time electronic music artist. A resident of NTS radio, she's also released on labels like PAN and created original productions for films and fashion brands, including Ottolinger. Her unique production style combines melodic techno, afro-trance, abrasive dancehall and what she calls "synthetic music"—genre-fluid mixes that switch effortlessly between pummeling techno cuts, high-speed electro and melodic trance. Listen to the conversation in full.

EX.694 Crystallmess

Dinamarca’s outing for Lost Music Festival 2023 fully delivered the hypnotic and dreamy atmosphere we know and love him for; blending his own melodic, trance-infused productions with cumbia, dembow and reggaeton. Pure dancefloor bliss to get lost in.

Find out more on crackaudio: crackm.ag/48MnWO8
If you’re a fan, become a Supporter: crackmagazine.net/subscription

Live from Lost Music Festival: Dinamarca

For today's Crack Mix, Oldyungmayn comes through with a kinetic club workout, fuelled by hard drum and percussive polyrhythms from the get-go. Featuring tracks from Scratcha DVA, Hodge, Doctor Jeep and many more, this is relentless, bass-heavy listening, just how we like it.

Across both his production and DJ output, the Palestinian-Egyptian artist  conveys a heady, frenetic dynamism rooted in textural depth, combining harsh sonics with heavy club euphoria. Which is exactly what he showcases with his mix here.

Check out the tracklist on crackaudio: crackm.ag/49672tU
If you’re a fan, become a Supporter: crackmagazine.net/subscription

Crack Mix 544: Oldyungmayn

For his exclusive Dazed mix, the NAAFI founder shares an hour of mostly unreleased dance edits influenced by jungle and rave. All the Dazed Mixes, all in one place. Read more: www.dazeddigital.com/mix

Dazed Mix: Lao

LAVURN is the debut self-titled album from Lavurn Lee, a singer, songwriter, producer, performer and DJ from the inner suburbs of Toronto. He has also lived and worked in Sydney, Hong Kong and Berlin. His music is an emotionally complex assemblage of processed vocals, filtered pads, surgically programmed drums, haunting melodic fragments and hazy textures. This 13 track album of sparse, emotive and experimental R&B is his second for SUMAC and his first under his own name, following a previous record under the name Fake in 2018. Lavurn was made over three years between Toronto, Berlin and Hong Kong in close dialogue with SUMAC founders DJ Plead and T.Morimoto.

Previously, as Cassius Select, he has established himself as a unique voice in dance music, releasing on cult labels such as Unknown to the Unknown, Accidental Jnr, Hypercolour, Banoffee Pies, Raw Basics and Bruk Records. His side projects include collaborations with vocalists such as VV Pete and Daemon, his previous experimental R&B aliases Guerre and Fake, and BV (alongside Marcus Whale and DJ Plead).


THOUGHTS & REFLECTIONS ON THE MAKING OF LAVURN

“I’m trying to make pop music. Not in the industry sense, but in the way that everyone is making their own type of pop music. It wants to be listenable, so it can create emotions. I come from bedroom song writing in the age of the internet. The lyrical content and sounds reflect my demeanor. Big ego with low sense of self-worth. Constantly posturing. At once both strong and weak. I don’t always trust my abilities. I don’t have the voice to produce contemporary radio R&B. I don’t do traditional harmonies, mine are all over the place.

It's the first time I'm writing about my own life in a literal sense. I spent years writing love songs having never been in a relationship. Whereas this feels very raw as a reflection of my experiences. To me the album sounds insular because it was made that way, in isolation. The vocals are used in a sampled way. A chorus for one track might be chopped and turned into another hook. A verse for one song is half timed and used for the chorus of another. Auto-Tune is used heavily. Some tracks are ‘written’ by pulling different beats, textures and vocals from different tracks and seeing what fits together. I tried to take self-sampling further and further. I was thinking of ways to world-build.

Most of the lyrical content on the album is about dealing with a breakup. But the album doesn’t reflect a break-up because it’s completely one sided. It doesn’t reflect the reality that I was an awful person during the relationship. Really it's an inward study of a reaction to rejection. It’s ambivalent. The attitude is “hey imma do me and improve myself”, while also desperately wanting someone back (for all the wrong reasons). There’s a veneer of self-improvement and healing. But it’s all performance. I used to think all the songs had a kind of toxic intent because of this. Trying to impress someone in a way that would make them want to return to you. In retrospect I understand the songs differently. They’re not perfect. A bit confused in their vulnerability. Maybe quite sweet in a way. I think it’s healthy for me to see the lyrics on the album as directed at myself. It’s an album about self-love. I learnt that making music can be a kind of self-care.” 
credits
released February 16, 2024

Written, recorded, produced and mixed by Lavurn Lee
Mastered by T.Morimoto
Photography by DJ Plead

LAVURN - JK

Karmina, formed by Civil, Pintalabios, and D.F.G., is a music collective and club night based in Texas and NYC. Tune into a specially curated guest hour they have done for NTS.  
Find the full tracklist and related episodes on NTS: https://www.nts.live/shows/guests/episodes/karmina-1st-march-2024

Karmina 010324

This week's TANK Mix is from London-based producer Flora Yin Wong, featuring all-new exclusives from Doyenne 005, a forthcoming compilation released on her record label Doyenne.

Tracklist: 
Over Him - Dean Blunt 
Lovesong (Folded) - Aya (forthcoming on Doyenne 05)
anything your heart desires - Torus 
Ascent - ??
Shaman - DJ Kolt 
Grito - Nick León 
Siren - Shygirl 
Puttukas (Organ Postlude) - Kara-Lis Coverdale 
Show Me How - Men I Trust 
Destroying Angel - James K 
Black is the Colour - Susu Laroche (forthcoming on Doyenne 05)
bythesword - Alexis
Vanguard - Bianca Scout
The Roof (Cover) - Flora Yin Wong
So Far Out Of Love - Malibu 
Body Double - Fatima Al Qadiri

TANK Mix: Flora Yin Wong

HOME ALONE - ERIKA DE CASIER ༢ MAUVE DECADE REMIX ᥫ᭡ꗃ⋆࣪

Surkin & Todd Edwards - Mighty Love

Championing the new wave of electronic art.

Surkin & Todd Edwards - Mighty Love

180.Fact

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