There’s an infinite number of different ways to approach playing techno, depending on the energy you’re seeking to transmit. As Gerald Brunson demonstrates on his mix for IO, one such way is the blistering high-tempo quick mix assault – something synonymous with the fabled Midwest rave scene in the US and parties like Drop Bass Network’s Furthur (where Brunson is a regular feature).

Immersed in the culture since the mid 90s, Brunson is perhaps best known these days as The Acid Jakal (@user-329641482), running the Dance Sacred label and agency (which also looks after Aux 88’s Keith Tucker, Suburban Knight and other such legends). As he prepares to release the Hug Your Friends EP on @tresorberlin, we hit him up for a mix and he shelled down this absolute monster workout. A mix of two halves, it gives you a serious shot in the arm of hi-octane techno with oodles of classics slammed in with true underground oddities. In the art of the rapid blend, nothing sounds like you’ve ever heard it before. Head to the link below for some insight into the world(s) Brunson comes from, and fire up a heavy dose of rave-ready firepower from a DJ that can absolutely be called the real deal.

https://internationalorange.io/iomix006-brunson/

IOMix

IOMix006 // Brunson

Out beyond the pastures of gridded, danceable structures, there’s a landscape teeming with original approaches to electronic and electro-acoustic music. That’s been the case since the first experiments with tapes and circuits in the days of musique concrete et al, but these days the hybrids are rich and varied, the forms ever mutating and fascinating.

Across a pair of EPs and now the recent, dazzling album Axis, @churchandrews and Matt Davies embody this spirit perfectly. Davies is an accomplished drummer working with an experimental impetus (think of the likes of Chris Corsano, perhaps), and his patterns are the triggers for Andrews’ synthesis, which in turn feeds back into Davies’ playing. It’s the perfect juncture of human creativity and machine logic, resulting in distinctive, fresh compositions you could happily file alongside the likes of Mark Fell, Rian Treanor, Beatrice Dillon et al.

Of course no work exists in a vacuum, and as such we asked for an IOMix which points to some of the adjacent sounds that contextualise Axis, and Andrews was kind enough to piece together a mixtape of mind-bending sonics which shape out a scintillating world of sound around his and Davies’ collaborative project. Recommended brain food for moments of focus, an authoritative tool of discovery (with added tracklist available via the link below for your research pleasure), or something to sit down and melt into when a quiet moment arises. Enjoy.

https://internationalorange.io/iomix007-church-andrews-matt-davies/

IOMix007 // Church Andrews & Matt Davies

Based in Berlin, originally from Sao Paulo and with Brazilian-Italian roots, Isabella Bassi @isabassi has cultivated a sound which makes sense in these hybridised times, but seems to draw from the open-ended spirit of 90s experimentation. It’s absolutely not throwback music, but rather shares a similar sense of creative freedom and a thirst for unexplored sonics and rhythmic forms. It helps that she’s on board with half-time tempos, nodding to some trip hop influences and not afraid to fold some noise rock qualities into her constructions.

Alongside her work as a production mentor, Bassi’s first release was the Utterly Prone To mini-album on Fox & Hound, which gave the first impressions of her sonic approach through a mixture of noisy sound design and punchy club pressure, all captured in one-take sessions. Since then, her 789 tape on Kinship and now Speaking Things on @super-hexagon reveal more detailed, intricate tapestries of sound which positively spring forth from the speakers. Ideally, the speakers in questions are towering stacks with monstrous subs, which is also our recommended serving suggestion for the incendiary mix she’s kindly gifted us. That said, you’ll get just as much from internal headphone shock-outs, if there’s not a soundsystem in convenient reach at this particular time. Hit play and head to the link for a few quick insights into the artist and her influences.

https://internationalorange.io/iomix008-isabassi/

IOMIx

IOMix008 // Isabassi

The latest entry in the IOMix series comes from Tom Knapp, who has been slipping out executive crunch as @sdemsdemsdem for a handful of years now. His active devotion to furtive strains of oddly funky machine music runs back to the 90s, and he’s been tangled in the web of cult label @skam for some time now, having graced the label with a niche mix back in 2004 alongside Alex Peverett as Mortal and Chemist. Following his outstanding turns for the likes of @cpurecords and Opal Tapes, he’s committed his latest wares to Skam for the Vortices LP, which showcases his dank, scuffed approach to freak-fried B-boy gear in spectacular style. We invited him to throw down a mix which captures his unique, informed view of Skam’s vital legacy, and he’s done himself and us proud in the process.

Head to the link for a Q&A with the Knappster, with a head-scrambling tracklist thrown in for good measure.

https://internationalorange.io/iomix011-sdem/

IOMix011 // SDEM

Labels like @peakoil and @balmat_cat are not necessarily the most prolific or long-standing platforms in experimental electronic music, but when they present a new name you tend to take notice. Such is the trust built from sharp curation and framing of the music, and so @hoavi's appearance on both labels in 2021 quickly established Kirill Vasin as an artist to immediately pay attention to. While Peak Oil and Balmat navigate very different sonic territory, Vasin’s sound ably adapted to the diverse surroundings with distinct records that suggested a prolific talent shaping out his own universe seemingly immune to broader trends. Invariant offered a prismatic approach to techno and jungle fortified with dense signal processing and rapid, angular sequencing, while Music For Six Rooms‘ dub-informed textural and melodic blooms favoured space and patience without ever defaulting to purist ambience. 2022’s Posle Vsego on equally trustworthy @quiettimetapes possibly erred towards the latter sensibility, but musically it feels like another entirely singular record.

As if proving the point that we shouldn’t second guess what Hoavi will bring to any release, the recent mini-LP Phases arrived on gost-zvuk-records earlier this year as an exercise in metallic rhythm explorations, in keeping with the St. Petersburg-via-Moscow label’s emphasis on grainy, modernist techno abstraction. It’s a natural fit for Vasin – an idiosyncratic misfit sharing a particular sonic vision on a label which harbours similarly prolific, oddball, versatile producers like producedbyflaty, S A D and Nocow. There’s a thread of outsider sonics from Russia which has been evolving for a long time now, also represented on labels like @udacha and @anwostudio, and Hoavi embodies everything exciting and innovative about the music on offer.

The geopolitical context of music from Russia is impossible to ignore, and in the early days of the invasion of Ukraine a brave but understandably understated compilation set out the position of many of these artists, Hoavi included. In a broader sense, the music itself exists outside of time and place, and tends to deal in less direct messaging as opposed to pure sound exploration, but the vague qualities which group these artists together instinctively render the imperfections of a broken world. Compared to the sheen of experimental music from elsewhere, there’s an acute sense of industrial decay and oily residue clinging to the pointilist systems which spool out from their chosen tools. There’s space for beauty and romance, but it’s always underpinned by the grim realities of existence within the bounds of nefarious power dynamics.

In the wake of the release of Phases we reached out to Vasin to record a mix for us, which serves as a fascinating insight into unreleased works from a crop of artists in his orbit. It’s a richly varied session which maintains a commitment to intrigue and unique expression, whether in passages of taut percussive reductions, tender melodic phrases or tape-wrecked jams from parts unknown. In other words, no less unpredictable than we would expect at this stage. Hit play for an hour of far-flung tinkering on the cutting edge, and read on via the link below for a little insight into the making of the mix and the wider outlook for Hoavi and the St. Petersburg scene he resides in.

https://internationalorange.io/iomix012-hoavi/

IOMix012 //Hoavi

Not everyone is up on the further reaches of the Midwestern techno sound beyond Detroit. Maybe if you’re into 90s US techno you’ve comes across @woodymcbride, who was operating out of Minneapolis, or heard about the legendary Even Furthur Festival in Wisconsin where Daft Punk delivered a live set in 1996 way before the robot helmets and global super stardom. There’s a particular vibe to that Midwest sound, where toughness, roughness and funkiness go hand in hand, but the stuff out of Ohio spearheaded by the triumvirate of Archetyp (aka Charles Noel), @tduvante and @toddsines-music had its own spectacular twist. If you don’t know, get to digging. There’s some gold out there for those with open ears.

Obviously this is all coming from a place of personal appreciation – we love that stuff here at IO, and that’s exactly why @teakup's tracks caught our ear even before we found out the emergent producer in fact hails from Columbus and has even been aligned with the likes of Duvante in something of an intergenerational passing of the baton. His sound isn’t a carbon copy of what came before, but rather an exciting update of a particular techno essence which comes from that part of the world. We strongly recommend you check out his releases on DATA DISK, Shut Off Notice and his own TKP label, but in the mean time you can get a full feel for the approach he takes as an artist on this incendiary entry for the IO Mix series. As standard, head to the link below for a Q&A that sheds a little more light on this most essential of new techno artists.

https://internationalorange.io/iomix013-teakup/

IOMix013 // Teakup

In the Northern hemisphere it’s all too easy to make gross generalisations or misconceptions about what’s good in South American club music. Colombia seems to be having a moment as crews like @tratratrax score magazine covers and the like, while Brazil has its fair share of exposure and interaction with the wider world thanks to the energetic scenes in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and beyond. Chile however has always been a little less exposed, due in part to the simple geography as much as other more complex issues around global socio-political power dynamics. Without derailing hard into those topics, we’re here instead to celebrate the release of Place: Chile — a new compilation in the @airtexture label’s series focusing on a regional scene (the past entry for Tunisia is essential listening too), curated by a local artist with all tracks donated and the proceeds going to an environmental cause in the area of focus.

For the Chilean instalment of the series, Air Texture have turned to @kleinepia to be their local guide, which seems to be a very wise shout indeed. Pía Sotomayor has been entrenched in the Chilean electronic music scene since the early 00s, championing local sounds while staying keyed into the continued development of techno at its most imaginative. She’s equally drawn to house, breakbeat and electro rhythms, so let’s consider techno as a broader umbrella term for inventive, meaningful dance music which she engages with as a DJ and producer alongside her primary professional roles as a journalist and historian. Sotomayor has been recognised across guest mixes and international gigs aplenty, but we’re in full support of her grounded outlook, which prioritises music as a creative venture rather than a careerist one. Real quality shines through, and that’s exactly what she’s reached for in assembling the compilation, which now gets faithfully represented in this razor-sharp mix alongside a broader sweep of relevant selections. It’s a great insight into the vibrant sounds coming out of Chile’s DIY scene at present, and a vital testament to Kleine Pía’s standing as one of the finest DJs in the country.

Hit play below and then head to the link below for a Q&A and the tracklisting.

https://internationalorange.io/iomix0014-kleine-pia/

IOMix014 // Kleine Pia

“If you’re anything like me, you probably don’t read The Source any more and miss crews like the JVC Force,” said @buck65 on his 2001 track ‘You Know The Science’. It’s a nerdy backpacker hip-hop shout-out to true-skool values which came out on the incredible Man Overboard album, a pinnacle of golden era @anticon. For those unfamiliar, Anticon is a Californian label which emerged in the mid-late 90s from a particularly imaginative crew of rappers and producers who artfully subverted the hip-hop form with abstraction, flamboyance and poetic weirdness. Buck’s bars are a love letter to hip-hop as a force for innovation in the face of all-too predictable co-option by mass production and industry, and to this day we’re lucky there are heads out there who feel the same.

Gordon Apps and D.Ham put the Anticon crew front and centre of their influences and framing for Shark In A Bathtub a low-key link-up from the ever-fertile folds of the @user-44357756. Suspicious Package champions an experimental swerve on proper hip-hop. It’s quite unlike anything the pair have dabbled in before, with Apps usually found wreaking out cyberpunk nightmares with Kelan in @bad-tracking and Ham moonlighting on collab tracks with other Bristol wayfarers like Yokel, BKV Industrial and the sort of folk supping Guinness and lurking shiftily around Mickey Zoggs.

Quite simply, Suspicious Package is a killer tape which comes with a strong recommend for anyone who loves misfit rap inversions with teeth. Being the nosy folk we are here at IO, we wanted to know where the pair were coming from so they knocked heads down the Noodio to throw down this blend of formative influences which arrive in two distinct halves. Slip into something more comfortable, get thyself blunted literally or metaphorically, read the Q+A and check the IDs via the link below and enjoy the ride — teenagers of the 00s, we’re looking at you.

“To hip-hop as a religion, you know the science.”

https://internationalorange.io/iomix015-shark-in-a-bathtub/

IOMix015 // Shark In A Bathtub

Having a mammoth success with your music early on is a loaded situation for an artist to navigate. On one hand you’re suddenly exposed to an abundance of opportunities, and maybe even the tantalising possibility to devote your life to nothing but the craft. On the other, you’re now established as a very particular thing which your new-found audience will expect of you, weighing in on your next moves whether you like it or not.

Many people will have an idea in their head about @max-graef’s music based on the widespread reach of his 2014 album Rivers of the Red Planet. It’s no surprise his crafty, bumping strain of sample-a-delic house caught a wave and thrust him into the limelight — it’s distinctive, catchy and weighted with the nous of a real head schooled in digging culture. In the 10 years since, though, Graef has steered away from the upper echelons of the industry that seemed to beckon him with open arms and gnashing teeth.

There have been albums to sink into – a collab with kindred spirit @glenn-astro on @ninja-tune and 2018’s Lo Siento Mucho Pero No Hablo Tu Idioma – but at the same time Graef has been quietly building a fascinating universe for himself and his mates called TAX FREE RECORDS. It’s a culture all unto itself, tangled up in a lattice of collaborations and aliases, slipping stylistically between the cracks to celebrate the richness of cult music forms from around the world, generally united by groove but not beholden to it.

Now Graef has returned with Natural Element, his third album on regular haunt @tartelet-records. It’s an expansive album which seems to channel his loosely psychedelic adventures in TAX FREE towards head-nodding beat constructions, finding a sweet spot that celebrates his story so far while sounding entirely fresh and overflowing with inspiration. It’s a richly satisfying listen which first found form as a vague mixtape concept, and Graef has kindly reflected on this original idea for the album by crafting us an extended mixtape which folds tracks from the album into a broader tapestry of adjacent tracks and additional productions.

Everything is bound together by the same soul-charged, brain-massaging, pleasure-centred sonics that have defined Graef’s output to date, and we’re beyond thrilled to share it with you now. This is absolute hammock-riding, daydream reverie business, so get your go-to comforts in hand, whatever they may be, and get this mix licking round your lobes. As ever, hit the link below for a cute Q&A with the chap, and if you dig it, spread the good word so more fine folk can savour the flavour.

https://internationalorange.io/iomix016-max-graef/

IOMix016 // Max Graef

We’ve been hounding @anina for a mix for some time, but as always it’s worth waiting for the right moment and her set at Young Echo was the perfect spark. It was immediately apparent there was fresh inspiration guiding the tracks she was reaching for — the sort of mixing you do when a fresh batch of records arrives, or when you finally indulge a fleeting hype. Sometimes these phases open out into a wider steer for your creative practice, other times it’s a passing moment, but the energy is always palpable. Luckily for us, Anina was up for catching the energy around this set and went IN (even getting an extra CD-J to do the job), creating a truly masterful set that weaves through crooked rhythms and heads-down atmospherics somewhere between deep techno, sleek D&B, the Autonomic vibe and a more abstract feeling all of its own.

Hit play up in here, or head to IO for the full post, a Q&A interview and the tracklisting:

https://internationalorange.io/iomix017-anina/

IOMix017 // Anina

Shredding the concept of DJing down and remoulding it in her own provocative way, @maryloudj pushes the artform into bold, expressive forms that make simple beatmatching seem timid by comparison. The Berlin-based DJ is rightly proud of her approach, which she deems "unprofessional", drawing as it does on an intimate and wide-reaching relationship with sound unbound by the Tetris-block approach to DJing which so often goes along with sequenced electronic music. Drawing from a lifelong fascination with sounds from all parts of the world, and gifted with the creative elan to pull off wild shifts and unlikely juxtapositions, Marylou represents a growing culture of non-conformist DJing that proves there is so much more to say in pairing music than just keeping two beats in time. 

For this IOMix, which accompanies Joseph Francis' in-depth interview with Marylou, we've been gifted a recording of her Sunday afternoon set from pe:rsona 2024, an intimate festival hosted by @positiveeducationfest that took place in France. As the photos attest, it was a blistering July sun that beat down on the three hour session, and there's a sense of that clamouring, dry heat in Marylou's mesmerising, epic session. There's so much to experience and absorb - drums of all shapes and sizes, chants from unknown lands, extreme textures and haunting beauty, crushing bass and bittersweet swerves. You'll never hear another DJ do it quite like Marylou. 

Head to International Orange to read the interview: https://internationalorange.io/marylou-from-ritual-to-rave/

IOMix018 // Marylou

Take a deep breath and attune yourself to Sheldon Agwu's frequency. The London-based guitarist has been moving around his city's thriving jazz scene for some time, most notably cropping up on albums from Jordan Rakei, but he's now quietly striking out on his own with Kintsugi, an understated masterpiece that finds power in stillness. There's a fascinating emotional zone that opens up where jazz and ambience intersect, and Agwu has tapped into it to create a warm, soporific record with moody nuance that should satisfy the latent trip hop heads as well as the new age dreamers. The dusty, laconic beatdowns and beatless reveries are on a level pegging on the album, and honestly it's been on constant rotation more than a lot of Bandcampient gets these days.

We were drawn in by the sound, but the name-checked reference points also grabbed our attention. There aren't lots of artists name checking niche acts like Andrew Pekler, so we were intrigued to learn more about the influences that guided Agwu to this spectacular debut record. As it turns out, the creative process leading to Kintsugi was hugely influenced by some prolific years spent digging across the vibrant, varied landscape of London record shops, and Agwu was kind enough to lay down a mixtape for us that outlines some of the treasures he gathered on his quest, which fed into the sound of his album.

Check out the interview with Agwu and scope the tracklist over at internationalorange.io/iomix019-sheldon-agwu

IOMix019 // Sheldon Agwu

Striding into the twentieth entry in our humble mix series, we're beyond honoured to host the mighty @unspecified-enemies with an hour-long masterclass of machine funk that lays out some of the dancefloor influences behind the recent Romance In The Age Of Adaptive Feedback EP on @nmbrs .

Detroit fiends take heed for there's plenty of Motor City heat contained within, but also jungle magic from Source Direct, modernist dubwise abstraction from Topdown Dialectic and blown out ambience from Seefeel. 

Learn more about the story and ideas behind Unspecified Enemies in the full article. Tracklisting also included.

https://internationalorange.io/iomix020-unspecified-enemies/

IOMIX020 // Unspecified Enemies

Proper sonics according to our internal logics. 
Never do a rush job. 
Editor: @oliwarwick

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