Functions of the Now: http://truantsblog.com/tag/FOTN/
Artwork: Joe Jackson @ http://deadgoodshit.com 

Functions Of The Now is a mix series charting modern developments at the innovative edges of dance music. Originally conceived in 2013 to shine a light on the once-again fertile grime production scene and its influence, the remit of the series quickly widened to incorporate all manner of interesting manipulations of existing club modes. Whether it's Air Max 97's "oblique club trax", E.M.M.A.'s baroque grime or DJ NJ Drone's hyperkinetic take on Jersey Club it all has a home in Functions Of The Now. We hope to draw connections between these often disparate forms. 

Functions of the Now

After a heavyweight entry by Bloom we now shift our gaze back down under, where Air Max ’97 has been hard at work creating new spaces and possibilities for the club. With an open-ended, exploratory process, Air Max’s work hones in on lush texture and rhythmic imbalance, on the dancefloor its felt as confronting, challenging yet undeniably fun and playful. These themes were fully explored in his label-debut ‘Progress and Memory’ on Liminal Sounds, though traces can be found in his earlier self-released material (‘Recurse’, a sleepy-eyed wake-n-bake soundtrack, is a personal favourite). On January 26 we’ll be taken deeper down the rabbit hole with his follow-up Liminal EP ‘Fruit Crush’, 3 tracks of twinkling dancefloor magic in which his unique approach fully crystalises. These dense rhythmachines are instantly recognizable as Air Max’s, they are a Galapagos island of images and iterations. Again we find only a tangential connection to grime, an admiration of its sonic and spatial magic and a knowing respect for its historic and current communities, contexts and localities. The impact of grime is felt as sonic philosophy, as process and possibility.

READ MORE: http://truantsblog.com/2014/functions-of-the-now-xi-air-max-97/

Functions Of The Now XI: Air Max '97

Sarayu is a key figure amidst the Bangkok underground and remains pivotal in the progression of the scene. As the co founder of More Rice records he has been pivotal in releasing music from locals and broadening the reach of music from Thailand. He works tirelessly and also produces his own music alongside involvement in Bar Temp and Bangkok Community Radio.

He keeps busy.

This mix demonstrates his prowess as a DJ and what a mix it is.

Weaving between different variations of house music, this one is perfect for the hot, sticky summer and is packed with feel good moments and deep groves galore.

Sarayu: The Ransom Note Mix

@kyrakhaldi with a beautiful live set, she specially recorded for this Smoke serie. 
Kyra is a multi-talented artist, producer and co-label owner of @foresightrecords with her new alter-ego: Sensa, she peforms more pop orientated-songs, check it out! 

As Kyra Khaldi she makes and plays different styles of music in the electronic spectrum from ambient to house and a few techno touches! 

Thanks so much for Kyra for this beautiful trip and to peform all this music by yourself for the Smoke series! <3

Kyra Khaldi (Live) - Smoke #24

It's all about old school, warm, dubby, freaky, twisted house! 

https://www.instagram.com/olsvanger
https://www.soundcloud.com/olsvanger



Olsvangèr @ The Lot Radio 08-14-2025

releases September 17, 2025

The first long player to drop on Radiant Records is Pansy Beat, the debut album from label head Byron Yeates.

The ten tracks on Pansy Beat are suffused with Byron’s musical influences, showcasing the full breadth and depth of his sonic world. Woven with subtle nods to the UK rave continuum, the album reverberates with the sounds of ’90s London radio that soundtracked Byron’s early years.

Starry-eyed IDM, jangly electronica, rolling drum and bass, and playful references to new wave and synth-pop converge alongside the rich tapestry of house music on which Yeates has built his reputation as a DJ and producer.

Carefully arranged and seamlessly flowing, the tracks balance playful charm with serious intent — insouciant basslines, glossy synths, dreamy pads, and moody atmospherics are laced with clever sampling and intricate percussion — a journey to the end of the night that tiptoes between euphoria and melancholy with a subversively camp pop sensibility.

Sitting somewhere between a dance music and home listening album, Pansy Beat echoes the mood of a DJ set from Byron Yeates: an intimate, seductive, and playful collection of tracks, grounded by a classic sensibility shaped by a lifetime of musical word-building.

All songs written and produced by Byron Yeates
Track 4 written and produced by Byron Yeates & 131bpm
Mixed by Lawrence Lee / Track 4 mixed by 131bpm
Mastered by Six Bit Deep
Artwork by Kevin Brennan
Text by Eoin Ryan

BYRON YEATES - PANSY BEAT

US artist Danny Daze, out of Miami, has long been affiliated with the more electronic side of dance music. From the early days in the electro scene and more abstract forms of techno, the Omnidisc boss has covered a lot of musical ground since then. Helping to reimagine the underground landscape, Danny was pivotal in the early 2010s club sound with releases on Hot Creations, Ellum Audio, and Kompakt. He soon turned his attention back to the obscure side of the dancefloor and IDM. As much a music lover and dancer as he is an artist, he knows exactly what works on the dancefloor and his recent album “::BLUE::” on his own Omnidisc imprint exemplifies this ethos. [continue reading at...https://trommelmusic.com/music/trommel-226-danny-daze/]

Trommel.226 - Danny Daze

Part of Aldonna's super set at PDC in the Green House at Kreuzwerk Berlin in May 2025


PDC Live - Aldonna at PDC @ Kreuzwerk May 2025

An hour of Shanti Celeste live from the Love International Sunrise Sessions in 2025. 

TP540 Shanti Celeste (Love International Sunrise Sessions)

🌐 Refuge Worldwide is a radio station and community space based in Berlin-Neukölln.
➡️ More info, more music: www.refugeworldwide.com

Help us stay on air by donating to our fundraiser: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-refuge-worldwide-community-radio

Neurotiq Erotiq Takeover - Simon TK & Activator - 04 Sep 2025

021 - JAIMY

Sultry low-end grooves from a rising house enchantress.

"What kind of music do I actually want to play?" Every artist asks themselves this at some point in their career. What is a sound? And why do we personally identify with it? For Lea Lang, AKA dj sweet6teen, this question is the guiding force behind her RA Mix.

Born in Aachen, a German spa city close to the border with Belgium, Lang found her musical feet in the vibrant student hub of Cologne. It was while studying social work at the Technische Hochschule that she fell into the nightlife scene. 

Finding her sound wasn't an instant process. Lang cut her teeth on breaks-heavy house and prog (think Angel D'Lite), traces of which you can hear peppered across RA.1004. But as she explains in this week's Q&A, the pandemic years were, musically, a turning point. 

"High BPMs and short-lived trends became very dominant and I realised I couldn't stand the pace anymore," she writes. "That's when my sound naturally shifted into something more minimalist and timeless."

Nowadays, you'll find Lang in Berlin during the week, and on weekends… well, take your pick. A busy touring schedule means she's on the road almost constantly —this summer she's debuted at Horst Arts & Music, Butik, Dimensions and Panorama Bar (to name just a few). 

And her RA Mix? It oozes charm from the jump. Buoyant with gyrating low-end, it's hard to think her sound was ever anything else: vocals twirl around analogue basslines, material à la Eddie Richards and Terry Francis's historic Wiggle parties, as well as the kind of bongo action that wouldn't feel out of place in an Apollonia session. Call it waft, wiggle, smooch house—whatever it is, we like it.

@djsweet6teen 
Find the tracklist and interview at https://ra.co/podcast/1022

RA.1004 dj sweet6teen

Soundcloud: @r-i-p-dj
Artwork: Joe Jackson @ deadgoodshit.com
Read More: http://truantsblog.com/2015/functions-of-the-now-xiv-dj-nj-drone

DJ NJ Drone has been occupying precarious borderspace for some time, tip-toeing around genre in his production of frantic, hi-speed abstractions. Overdriven, overloaded, NJ Drone is like déjà vu, an anomaly simultaneously familiar and distant. Travelling through his ‘mind club’ at 150+ bpm gives the sense of breaking through space-time, of continuous momentum accompanied by bizarre vocal incantations that affect the mind like the hideous but kinda cute soundworld of Fitch and Trecartin. But at the end of the day, we break through the mind to find a body lurking beneath, we find embodied ritual beyond weltschmerz, beyond acidic regurgitations of technological positivism. While NJ Drone’s speed may lend itself as a metonym for accelerationism’s privileged desires for cyber-disembodiment, ultimately we are directed towards a firmer politics of the body as resistance in real space (that some of the more optimistic amongst us might hope to find on the dancefloor). In the words of Laboria Cuboniks: “no more futureless repetition on the treadmill of capital, no more submission to the drudgery of labour, productive and reproductive alike, no more reification of the given masked as critique.” Rediscover yr bod with DJ NJ Drone!

Functions Of The Now XIV: DJ NJ Drone

Tracklist/Interview: http://truantsblog.com/2015/functions-of-the-now-xv-e-m-m-a
Soundcloud: @oiiemma

For the fifteenth edition of Functions Of The Now we're extremely pleased to present a long time Truants favourite: E.M.M.A. Although E.M.M.A’s release schedule has slowed since her debut album Blue Gardens landed, her Functions Of The Now mix hints at the wealth of dubplates waiting to be unleashed, including the exquisitely titled Magna Kanye. Elsewhere, E.M.M.A finds common ground with producers on the dreamier end of grime: rising star Iglew, Gobstopper Records label head Mr Mitch and Coyote Records affiliate Tom E. Vercetti (solo and together with his production trio Silk Road Assassins) all make an appearance.

Functions Of The Now XV: E.M.M.A.

Soundcloud: @Rushmore
Full interview/tracklist: http://truantsblog.com/2015/functions-of-the-now-xvi-rushmore

For Functions Of The Now XVI we tapped up House Of Trax/Trax Couture boss Rushmore, who ably supplied us with a potent mix of percussive heaters. Today sees the release of the latest edition of Trax Couture's World Series: a singular set of inventive rhythm tracks from Malaysian producer Moslem Priest. Rushmore's mix taps into the same energy, with upfront material from the extended World Series family as well as the man himself.

Functions Of The Now XVI: Rushmore

Tracklist/Interview/Download: http://truantsblog.com/2015/functions-of-the-now-xvii-malin
Soundcloud: @malinss

For the seventeenth edition of Functions Of The Now we travel to Sweden to meet Evolver co-creator Malin. After a series of incredible mixes for Rodeo, Sister and Tobago Tracks we were desperate to get her on board for FOTN, and we're thrilled with what she came through with. Malin's mix taps into an aesthetic that's been sorely missing from the series so far, joining the dots between Quantum Natives’ noisy abstractions, the more deconstructed end of Non Records and the sound art of E. Jane and plus_c’s SCRAAATCH project - and of course, a hefty helping of dark ‘n’ doomy club tracks for good measure.

Functions Of The Now XVII: Malin

Tracklist + Download + Interview: http://truantsblog.com/2015/functions-of-the-now-xviii-dj-haram

Soundcloud: @djharam

For the final Functions Of The Now of the year we travel to Philadelphia to meet Jersey club experimentalist DJ Haram. Splitting her work between the DJ Haram and Abdul Kadir aliases, her music encompasses everything from noise to club bangers, via fiercely political collaborative work and Middle Eastern bootlegs. Excitingly her mix is one of the wildest we’ve had, with lots of new DJ Haram/Abdul Kadir productions, a collaboration with Fade To Mind rising star Rizzla and mind bending noise from exciting new face N-Prolenta.

Functions Of The Now XVIII: DJ Haram

TRUANTS: http://truantsblog.com
PATREON: http://patreon.com/truants

Music imprint curated by a group of globally dispersed friends, contributing vibes to the internet since 2010.

Crew: 

@soraya
@riccardovillella
@taystii
@ttrostle
@mellolololo

Functions Of The Now XI: Air Max '97

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