Hello friends, I've decided It’s time for my next Warm Hug musical offering.

Today I am sharing the full live recording of the last Warm Hug set I played back in December 2024. I've listened to it a lot this year, mainly on my solo hikes in the mountains of the lake district, using it a tool to help me deal with the ongoing grief of losing my father back in Jan this year, it's now time to share it with the world.

Music has always been the most powerful way for me to express my emotions, and this set has been like a key, letting me open the flood gates, allowing me feel the pain, understand it, release it, and let it guide my own personal healing process. Losing a parent changes you forever, so sharing this set is extremely personal to me, but I feel like now is the right time, especially as we enter Autumn, my most adored season, a time of deep reflection and one that is filled with precious memories of my father.

I performed this set around 3 weeks before he died, so as I gathered the music and prepared it, he was very much in my through process, as things were getting extremely difficult towards the end of his life, and perhaps some of the music reflects that. There is a lot of darkness and pain in this set, but also a joy and light. Some of you who were at the event told me this was my best Warm Hug set so far. The more I listen, the more I enjoy it, and it’s become an important meditation tool for me. This set is definitely the most personally deep artistic expressions ive ever put out there. I cry every time I listen to it.

Please listen with with good quality headphones, with patience, and in one go if possible to fully experience and understand the journey. I played this set in a dark room to 60 people all laying down, wrapped in blankets, locked into the music, no distractions, just stillness. It was a beautiful experience, this is what my Warm Hug events are all about, presenting emotive music in an environment that allows you to feel it’s power in the best possible way, outside of the hectic world as we know it.

I'm not sure yet if I will ever do another Warm Hug event, I need to be in a certain headspace to make this kind of art, it requires a lot of mental energy and at the moment I'm not quite there, but you never know. If I feel like another Warm Hug event is on the cards, I will let you know. I do also have the previous 3 Warm Hug event sets that I might release at some point.

For now, please sit back, get comfortable, and go deep into this profound musical journey.

Please do let me know what you think, and share with the world if you like it. It might also help others heal and release trapped emotions.

PS, no idea why the name of one of the artists who made one of the tacks in the set is in the title lol Bizzar. 

Much love
Aidan x

A Warm Hug By Aidan Doherty Autumn 2025

Aidan Doherty - London based DJ and founder of Warm Up and Warm Up Festival.

Founder and resident DJ of London’s beloved subterranean community, Warm Up, Aidan Doherty has established himself as a vanguard of a special pocket of sound and space in London’s underground scene, since the movements conception in 2013.

It is his uncompromising, passionate belief in music’s capacity to affect emotional change, together with total emersion in Warm Up’s own particular narrative, eclectic groove that has earned him an avid, loyal following and recognition as one of London’s most respected, sought after names.

From a potent list of warm up sets for the likes of Max Cooper, Stephan Bodzin, Christian Löffler, Joris Voorn and Kollectiv Turmstrasse, to his signature extended closing sets at ‘Warm Up In The Woods’ outdoor summer events, expect above all, transition. A journey.

It is there that you will begin to get quietly subsumed by a dynamic range of deep, melodic techno and electronica coupled with the unique painterly style that flows and bristles through his sets.


For him, community means everything, community is after all, about identifying the people around you with whom you can create a common, passionate cause. It’s about ignoring the conventional wisdom of bland, sometime politics and playing the game by a different set of rules. You have DJ’s who play music, and you have DJ’s who tell stories, be a storey teller.

A Warm Hug By Aidan Doherty Autumn 2025

Aidan Doherty (Warm Up)