Each week, the FACT team trawls through the untamed world of free mixes, radio specials and live blends so you don’t have to.
This week’s round-up counters Chicago house with Chicago punk and features a handful of offerings that approach forward-thinking club music with a general disregard for genre. Plus, there’s the kind of deep, dusty techno set that always finds its way into the mix.
Joey Anderson
Dekmantel Podcast 012
We can’t resist a bit of deep, dusty techno, and who better to provide than Jersey’s Joey Anderson. On this special Dekmantel mix he takes things slowly, building from synth-laced Detroit-style slow burners into brooding 4/4 monsters without resorting to cheap tricks or bait picks. This one’s for heads who think techno’s taken a wrong turn in recent years – Joey Anderson’s here to let you know that all’s not lost.
Stave – Secret Thirteen Mix 147 by Secret Thirteen on Mixcloud
Stave
Secret Thirteen Mix 147
Stave and Talker fans might be a little worried to know that Jonathan Krohn hasn’t put together the sizzling selection of grim techno you’d expect. Instead he’s looked to Chicago’s axe-wielding recent past, collecting up punk, hardcore and post-rock gems that signify a time in the city when music was developing rapidly. That means Tortoise and Low of course get their time in the spotlight, but also Rapeman, The Jesus Lizard and U.S. Maple. Anyone who was buying Kranky, Drag City and Touch and Go records in the ’90s will feel like they’re being wrapped in a familiar, warm blanket.
Hysterics
50kg Mix
Girl Unit dons his Hysterics edit for the 50KG Mix, a sequel of sorts to the the 20 KG mix that kicked off the project back in 2013. This edition is just as raw and warehouse-ready, but nods to ’80s industrial and EBM have mostly been replaced with a renewed focus on Chicago-inspired house as he connects the dots between French club kids like Jean Nipon and French Fries; contemporaries Egyptrixx, LSD and Jacques Gaspard Biberkopf; Kylie instrumentals and Baltimore club bitch tracks.
Kilbourne
Mixpak FM
New Orleans-based DJ-producer Kilbourne proves why she’s one of our club producers to watch with her mix for the always on-point Mixpak FM: a supercharged 50-minute workout that moves between Jersey club favorites (the real stuff, no imitators), bleeding-red EDM and plenty of the Caribbean sounds that Mixpak has made its stock-in-trade. And as she explained at SXSW, if it doesn’t interface with pop, it doesn’t matter — that explains the helium-fed remix of Zedd and Selena Gomez’s ‘I Want You To Know’. And definitely don’t miss Joey Labeija and False Witness’ Rahel remix.
ISLAND
Mix for Pigeons & Planes
Welsh duo ISLAND follow their “organic but synthetic” Nokia EP with this mix for Pigeons & Planes, exploring the same genre-less, fantastical melange as their Crazylegs debut. Synth-blasted electro-funk, video game ambience, ice-cold Southern hip-hop, saccharine pop — they’re all artifacts in ISLAND’s alternative universe as they share the bill with friends and figments (paging Dream*cast and dj watever).
Kid Antoine
NRK Guestmix
HER Records outlier Kid Antoine provides another keenly selected handful of tunes here, and what the mix lacks in length it makes up for with pure quality. Antoine runs through a smart set of bangers from Cakes Da Killa and Dinamarca before jumping into his own productions and ending on a breathtaking edit of DJ Marfox’s ‘Lucky Punch’. Good Kid.
