This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. Among the standout cuts are Voiski’s “ Ad Infinitum,” in which bright chords catch the light like sprinklers whipping across a summer lawn, and Wata Igarashi’s “ Night,” a track that exemplifies Halal’s instincts for capturing ecstatic moments and fixing them in amber. (Needless to say, this is great late-night driving music.) Her mixing style is exceptionally smooth-profoundly linear but always evolving, never boring.

Metallic tones bob like fireflies arpeggios unspool endlessly toward the horizon. After that head-nodding head-fake, though, the New York producer and DJ takes us deep down her more customary lane with nearly 90 minutes of dark techno accented with hints of acid and trance. Given the full-on drive of many of Aurora Halal’s productions, the understated opening here on her recent set for Tim Sweeney’s Beats in Space- DJ Sprinkles’ mournful, meditative “Sisters, I Don’t Know What This World Is Coming To”-might catch you by surprise. The finale is pretty great, too: Who knew that Belgian New Beat and Bristol bass could work so well together? Highlights include Fango’s Plastikman-referencing “ Rectum,” the Detroit flourishes of Dynarec’s noir-tinged “ All Automatic,” and the killer unidentified opener, which unleashes dizzy arpeggios over a simple shaker. Scanning the tracklisting, it’s actually not too hard to figure out which selections belong to which DJ-Ben UFO sticks largely to bass-heavy techno from his own extended circle, while Hauff leans toward classic-sounding electro and acid-but in practice, it all slots seamlessly together. And at their first-ever B2B pairing at this year’s Sónar festival, banging it out is exactly what they did: This is 83 minutes of bare-knuckled percussion, relentless acid, and insects-under-your-skin rave mania. The common denominator between the two is an adventurous spirit and the ability to bang it out without resorting to gimmicks. Ben UFO B2B Helena Hauff – RA Live – 2016.06.07, Sónar FestivalĪs far as back-to-back duos go, Ben UFO and Helena Hauff aren’t necessarily obvious fits for each other: Ben UFO tends toward leftfield techno, while Hauff wears her acid and EBM influences on her sleeve. And is that not, after all, the spirit of the European Union? (Bonus points for being, surely, the first DJ mix ever to open with a goal by the Italian soccer star Mario Balotelli.) While the mixing isn’t always seamless, mostly because these are styles that aren’t really meant to go together, she makes it work with remarkable finesse. Given the occasion, the Edinburgh native and LuckyMe signee came prepared with a bag stuffed with all European tunes: French house, Dutch electro, Ukranian techno, Polish children’s music, and loads of Continental hits like Falco’s “ Der Kommissar.” The selections are never anything less than eye-opening-I never knew that a 14-year-old Vanessa Paradis came to fame singing a song called “ Joe Le Taxi”-and the twists and turns (from Italo disco into French cloud rap, for example) consistently exhilarating. On June 23, the same day that the British public went to the polls and decided, in distressing numbers, to leave the European Union, Scotland’s Éclair Fifi took to the airwaves for her monthly show on NTS. Éclair Fifi – EU Special, NTS 007 – 23rd June 2016 What makes the mix so engaging is the way she keeps switching up the vibe without ever losing the thread: Most tracks play out for just a couple of minutes before she deftly changes them up, and she often focuses on a single, common element-in the case of a captivating three-track passage in the first half, a staccato snare pattern that reappears in three different tunes-to provide a counterintuitive through-line across tracks you wouldn’t think would work together. In between those points, the groove reigns supreme: dub, kwaito, club music, gqom, techno, and even Belgian New Beat. She opens with lysergic drones and dream-logic spoken-word-something about champagne-filled hot tubs in Las Vegas hotels and watching your best friend get skinned alive in the desert, all recited in a thick Midwestern accent and pitched down until it resembles this-and she closes with the apocalyptic vocoders of Chino Amobi’s “Rotterdam,” an unsettling vignette from his Airport Music for Black Folk album. (If this doesn’t satiate, take a look at last month’s Best Mixes column.) Laurel Halo – Truancy Volume 150įrom start to finish, Laurel Halo’s set for Truants’ 150th podcast is determined to throw you off balance.

Voiski ad infinitum