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1 min read
When Did Speed Garage Get This Big
Read more . . . →Genuine question: when did 130bpm with a wobble bass move from the record-shop crate to the Radio 1 playlist? Speed garage is up 625% on Splice, KETTAMA is sharing a Creamfields bill with Calvin Harris, and the genre that last peaked when Tony Blair was in office is having its loudest summer since 1997. Two tracks from the man standing in the middle of all of it. 1. KETTAMA - Pretty Green Eyes (Sunset Ibiza Mix) He took Ultrabeat’s trance classic, ran it through speed garage, and turned it into the Ibiza anthem of the summer. Nine Monday nights on...
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1 min read
Two Tracks That Broke the Genre Field
Read more . . . →There’s a Brazilian funk vocal buried inside a modular techno track and it heads Mixmag’s best-of list for 2026 so far. There’s a house record on a Ninja Tune imprint that sounds like it was assembled across three time zones at once. Two tracks this week with no fixed address, and both of them are better for the homelessness. 1. Skrillex, Randomer, Blawan & MC Dricka - Thistle This was floating around DJ sets for years before its proper release in May, and the wait was the right call. Blawan’s shredded metallic textures, Randomer’s chopped drum programming, MC Dricka’s Brazilian...
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1 min read
Overmono Made the Album of the Summer and It's Forty Minutes Long
Read more . . . →Three days with Pure Devotion and I’ve stopped opening Spotify for anything else. Overmono’s second album landed last Thursday — eleven tracks, forty minutes — and it rearranged the rest of my August. Their debut was a controlled detonation. This one is looser, warmer, and it wins every argument the first record started. 1. Overmono - Knight In Shining Prada (feat. John Joseph Holt) BBC Radio 1 gave this the Hottest Record tag and for once the hype was underselling it. John Joseph Holt sings over a beat that lands somewhere between 2-step and a headnod nobody’s named yet, and...
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1 min read
Two Records, No Connection
Read more . . . →If you only have ten minutes today, spend them on these two. They share no DNA. One went number one in three countries, the other cracked Beatport’s top 100 from a label most people can’t name. Both of them own a piece of this summer from opposite ends. 1. Adam Port & Stryv ft. Malachiii - Move You hear this once in a bar and then it follows you home. Malachiii’s vocal sits on a rhythm that splits the difference between Afrobeats and melodic house, and standing still to it is physically unreasonable. It went to number one in Belgium,...
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1 min read
Windows Down, Nothing Else
Read more . . . →Some tracks exist for dancefloors. These two exist for tarmac. 1. Tinlicker - Reborn The arpeggios come in and immediately it’s the late 90s and trance is the most important thing in the universe. Tinlicker spent three albums getting more refined, and then just went back to what got them started — rippling synths and urgent stabs, the kind of build that makes you grip the steering wheel tighter without realising. It runs close to nine minutes and earns every one of them. The third single off their fourth album, and the first Tinlicker track in a while that made...
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1 min read
UK Garage Sold Out Alexandra Palace
Read more . . . →Ten thousand people in Alexandra Palace, arms up for a two-step beat. Sammy Virji headlined two consecutive nights in April and sold both out. On the other side of the Atlantic, jigitz and Charlotte Plank premiered “car crash” at Coachella in the California heat. A month later, Virji announced a Finsbury Park headline for August. UK garage is a main-stage sound now, and these two records helped put it there. 1. Sammy Virji & Skepta - Cops & Robbers Skepta walked into the studio, put a UK garage documentary on mute, and freestyled the whole thing without writing a word...
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2 min read
Five Lanes, Five Tracks: Your Summer Subgenre Primer
Read more . . . →When did the dancefloor split into five dancefloors? Sometime between June and now, electronic music stopped being one genre and became a whole continent. The Beatport charts look like a census. Every festival stage is its own country with its own dress code. Here’s one track from each lane the summer is running on, for anyone who keeps hearing names they can’t place. 1. Prospa & Cloonee - Free Your Mind Prospa’s live rig meets Cloonee’s low end and what comes out is four minutes of your brain stem being politely relocated. The vocal loop is two words and they...
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1 min read
House Party: Three Grooves for the Bad-Decision Hour
Read more . . . →We started the week sensible and it didn’t stay that way. Closing it out with three house records for the hour when the group chat says one more and everybody knows it’s a lie. 1. Dom Dolla, Daya - Dreamin Dom Dolla again, because the man is having an entire summer to himself. Daya’s vocal is all longing, the groove underneath is all confidence, and the two of them together sound like texting someone you absolutely should not be texting at 1am. The bass has that Dom Dolla bounce that makes standing still physically impossible. 2. Chris Lake x Abel...
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1 min read
Rollers: Drum and Bass for the Motorway and the Field
Read more . . . →Summer at 174 bpm hits different. Three drum and bass tracks for windows down, foot heavy, festival or motorway, whichever gets you there faster. 1. Sub Focus, Wilkinson - Air I Breathe Sub Focus and Wilkinson have been doing this together for over a decade and they still make it sound effortless. Huge vocal, production so clean you could eat off it, and a drop that just rolls forward without ever showing off. This is the one for the last hour of a long drive when you need the car to feel like it’s flying. 2. Kanine - Bloodstream Kanine...
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1 min read
After Hours: When Summer Gets Dark and Weird
Read more . . . →Golden hour ends and the good part begins. Three tracks for the stretch after midnight, when the melodic techno crowd takes the tent and everyone’s already made at least two choices they’ll be explaining on Monday. 1. Anyma & Grimes - Welcome To The Opera This is what the after-hours stage sounds like when it fully commits to the bit. Grimes floating over Anyma’s production is genuinely eerie, and the drop arrives like a cathedral being pushed over slowly. It’s built for the 3am version of you, the one that thinks the giant robot visuals are speaking directly to your...
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