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 funk bars, and Skrillex holding the seams — four separate records happening at once, and nobody tried to smooth them into one. It dropped ahead of CONTRA at Kraftwerk Berlin, and that venue is exactly the right room for it — concrete walls and nowhere for the bass to hide. It went out via mailing list before it hit streaming, which feels correct for something this allergic to playlists.
2. camoufly - Himalaya
camoufly signed to Ninja Tune’s Technicolour imprint and this is the first thing out the door. The production pulls from house and speed garage and something older that I can’t place, and the music video is just tour footage from the US and Canada because the live show is apparently the whole pitch. There’s a warmth in the kick that most modern house tracks engineer out, and a synth wash in the back half that turns the whole thing sunset-coloured. I heard it with zero context and spent thirty seconds trying to figure out which decade made it. This one. Barely.
Neither track fits anywhere. That’s the whole recommendation.