Each week, FACT trawls through the untamed world of free mixes, radio specials and live blends so you don’t have to.
This week we’re spoiled again by Teki Latex with a French AF club mix, while Elena Colombi introduces us to the very strange contents of her record bag.
We also hang out with producer-to-watch foozool, Tropical Waste’s Seb Wheeler and Jakarta Records’ Jannis.
Don’t miss a very special mix by Iranian-born producer Kasra V from earlier in the week, selecting tracks from or inspired by Middle Eastern countries targeted by America’s grim new administration.
Teki Latex
Bérite Club Music
When a new Teki Latex mix surfaces, you know it’s time to drop whatever you’re doing. This week the Sound Pellegrino selector unveiled Bérite Club Music, a white-knuckle session drawing on tracks by young French producers he met while hosting his Overdrive Infinity broadcasts from a studio on Paris’ rue de Bérite.
Framed by Teki as “a new identity for a French club sound”, the mix features unheard original cuts, remixes and edits by artists who were part of the scene which emerged around the studio (before a nearby gas explosion ended the project), including Paradoxe Club’s De Grandi, Sunareht and Le Dom, Sylvere (Trax Couture), Fréquences Fortes (of Gang Fatale), Clubkelly (Crazylegs) and Detente.
It also contains classic tracks that help contextualise the new ones, including music by Coupé-Décalé godfather Molaré, Logobi heroes Zaza Twins and Afrotrap originator MHD. “France’s African immigration is the obvious basis of Bérite Club Music’s rhythmic identity,” says Teki. “Add to that memories of the French Touch’s eternal obsession for samples, but heard through the ears of young producers who grew up on French rap, grime chops, Jersey & B-more, and the Bérite sound starts taking its full form.” Don’t sleep.
foozool
Astral Plane mix 138
Bay Area artist and Club Chai co-founder Lara Sarkissian makes music under her real name and the foozool moniker, with the latter exploring “more abstract original productions and sound collage.” This latest foozool mix reads like a Club Chai scrapbook, folding in hybridized non-western club sounds with Armenian folk and pop sourced from her mother, while Sarkissian’s own edits pop up along the way. It’s a dizzying selection that fans of the recent Club Chai Vol. 1 compilation should stick on immediately.
Elena Colombi
Dekmantel Podcast 107
A strange and fruity selection from London’s Elena Colombi is a welcome change of pace for the usually-quite-banging Dekmantel mix series – not that you can’t dance to this, but you might find yourself pulling weirder shapes than normal. The NTS Radio host picks dog-eared rave, gurner EBM and head-rinsing techno from labels like Berceuse Heroique, Diagonal and Antinote – it’s got the MixesDB spotters working hard. Fans of Powell and Helena Hauff should make their way to their floor.
Habibi Funk
Habibi Funk 007 mix
“I’m aware that in times like these music is just a tiny piece of the puzzle to tell a different story, but given that this is what I’m working with I felt it was the right time to drop another mix,” writes Habibi Funk’s Jannis Stürtz. The reissue label is dedicated to unearthing “the funky music of the Arab world of the ‘70s” and this 40-minute blend neatly bottles its essence, while doubling up as an #antitrumpmusic protest. For the task, Stürtz drew on a trove of groovy gems which span pre-Revolution Iranian pop, dusky Egyptian soul, lo-fi Sudanese electronica and Lebanese yacht pop: “Music to listen to when the world is going crazy and everything in between,” he says. Funk you, Donald Trump!
Seb
Everything Changes
Tropical Waste DJ and Mixmag toerag Seb Wheeler has put together a mix of his favorite current material spanning club and UK rap – SHALT, Endgame, MIST, Belly Squad and the like – but it’s of particular import as it’s the first mix he’s made since he sadly lost most of the hearing in one ear last June. “It’s been a challenge to deal with and I haven’t been to a club since, but I’ve slowly but surely got back into listening to and enjoying all this new club music again,” he says. “It’s titled EVERYTHING CHANGES because you never know when life will flip on you and I wanted the tracklist to represent that – a collision of joy, pain and introspection.” Big up.
