For @eliasmazian, music is a time capsule - a form of transport to somewhere safe and secluded away from every day worries. It is a way for the Dutchman with Moroccan roots to express his deepest emotions and connect the music of his childhood with contemporary sounds from around the world. He showcased this with us at Dekmantel Connects back in 2021 and always in the music he makes.

He crafts a moody and atmospheric start to this week's podcast with melancholic melody over languid beats. There's then a slow shift to the dance floor before party-starting house jacks your body with plenty of hands-in-the-air pianos and ever more pumping basslines. It's a high-energy selection that wears its heart proudly on its sleeve.

Composer, DJ and sound artist @yu_su is Vancouver-based but China-born and she makes music that travels just as far. It is rooted on the dance floor but with influences that span a wide array of emotions, styles and scenes. From jazz to ambient to organic synthesis, wistful texture to her own multi-instrumental skills, she brings a new style of composition to her work. That was best exemplified on her adventurous and accomplished 2021 album Yellow River Blue which picked up plenty of critical acclaim.

Her mix for us this week brings Su's signature blend of dub, downtempo, house and trippy leftfield electronics. She says, "Once again, the story has a start and an end, but you could be anywhere you want inside the journey." She's not wrong - it is a living and breathing selection packed with cultural references, interesting rhythms and carnival atmospheres that is perfect for out door dancing under the sun with music from Pearson Sound, Jimmy Edgar, Midland, Carl Craig and many more.

@kiernan-laveaux is a boundless ball of chaos energy - an adventurous spirit, conducting the binary dissolving forces of our world that are reflected & transmuted through the unbridled passion contained within her DJing. The Cleveland artist's mission is "to channel love and understanding to dancers of open mind and spirit everywhere." Since 2014, her ethos of community building, personal autonomy, & transportative psychedelia has grown to encompass the multiversal creators of possible worlds everywhere, the In Training, Heaven is in You, & Disco Paradiso parties that traversed the wormhole of limitless expression & jouissance together in Cleveland from 2014-2018, & the Motherbeat raves that continue to manifest sporadically throughout our known universe. The music she plays is impossible to pin down in genre terms, but is unified by it's restless sense of ecstatic momentum, dissonant euphoria, & kinetic exuberance.

Her 80-minute mix for us this week is jam-packed with a little bit of everything, from peak time and head melting techno to heavenly electronics and Earth moving beats. The twisted rhythms and quick mixing style keep the whole thing moving at a real pace and move you ever closer to a transcendental state of dance floor psychedelia.

@dee_diggs plays with a sense of rapture that can be soft or heavy, but is always fun. The East Coast selector is Brooklyn-based, and that's where her House of Diggs party offers a place for marginalized groups to express and organize themselves. Next to this, she has a residency at Public Records but no matter where she plays, you can be sure it is always with real respect for the Black roots of house, techno and disco while touching on everything from sensual grooves to euphoric thumpers.

This week's mix is a seat-of-your-pants selection that is unashamedly party-focussed. The good vibes flow from the first moment as Dee races through passionate house and vocal laced classics. There are moments of all-out hands in the celebration next to boogie workouts and a heart-swelling Mariah Carey edit. It's a quick, tight, and impossibly enjoyable listen from this cultured party-starter.

Peach's DJ bio simply reads: "Ball of energy." And that's exactly what she brings each and every time. The Toronto-born, London-based DJ has made high impact, thrillingly eclectic sets an art form in the last few years having first started to turn heads with her brilliantly broad radio shows on NTS. Her dynamism also carries over into the music she has produced for labels like Midland's Intergraded and Shanti Celeste and Gramrcy's Peach Discs.

Peach's signature passionate style runs all the way through this week's mix. From the flurry of jungle breakbeats that open it up to the prickly bass, frenetic club rhythms and euphoric rave of the midpoint, it's an unrelenting ride. The second half becomes more spaced out, with roomier cuts and hypnotic grooves carrying you through the night and into the next morning.

@ohpeach

As co-founder of the MNML SSGS blog, Chris SSG was at the heart of dance music's most pressing discussions and cutting edge sounds from 2007 - 2012. Though originally from Melbourne, he has been based between Osaka and Tokyo for some time. It is in that city that he has hosted a number of events while also playing his own ambient, techno and experimental sets further afield around Japan as well as at European clubs like Nachtdigital, Sustain-Release and Berghain.

He says of this week's mix, "Half-jokingly I describe my style as ‘big room ambient’. Well, for two years, I did not play in any rooms, big or small. Then, finally I did, again, and this was what happened. This is the recording of an extended extended ambient and deep space session at a chill out party in Tokyo. I tried to play in a way that really captures my approach to playing ambient, moving between different energies and making contrasts, while featuring many of my favourite artists. This was a special experience for me, and I am very grateful to be able to share it with you." And he does just that over the course of four absorbing and compelling hours. Myriad different worlds are explored from textured and tense to blissed out and beautiful, but the whole mix is held together with a narrative arc that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Oliver Hafenbauer is a quietly influential artist who, for many years, shaped not only his local Frankfurt scene but also the wider electronic underground through his work with the legendary Robert Johnson club. In 2019 he stepped away from his roles there and has made his own mark. He is an accomplished DJ who takes his expert selection of house, IDM, techno and electro all around Europe, and also runs his left-of-centre Die Orakel label where artists are free to serve up their most experimental sounds.

This week he comes live and direct into your life with a timeless mix of club-ready beats that showcase exactly what he does so well. It's a balanced cross-section of robust four-four sounds that swerve fads and eschew any frills in favour of different textures and bass weights. Some are dark and heavy, others are more sleek and hypnotic, and the whole thing is held together with a sense of energy that makes the 60 minutes pass in an instant.

For this instalment of our Dekmantel Selectors podcast, we welcome Amsterdam-based Nèna (@castro-nena). Her song selections range from reggaeton and bass-heavy beats to dancehall and dreamy pop. When Nèna enters the booth, an emotional genuineness and an open atmosphere will connect the audience.

Defined by its day to night feeling, this mix continues to enter your ears with beams of sunlight and fast-paced emotions revolving around 'break-up season'. "This mix is created to break away from anger and sadness, dancing forward towards a new season," Nèna explains. "A higher pace than my usual mix, characterizes this podcast. It is created to trigger emotions." Moving your body and processing all kinds of feelings is facilitated by this sincere Dekmantel Selectors 2022 artist.

Over the past decade, Santiago-born, Mexico-based producer @tomasurquieta has harnessed his own brand of noise. His sounds are heavily textured, often distorted, and range from hammering techno bangers to intense flurries of drums and caustic synths. It is protest music that gave rise to his excellent 2018 long player Duenos de Nada and has continued to challenge the system ever since with a mix of futuristic and political, anarchic and metallic 12"s.

This week's podcast was recorded on a cold night in Brooklyn and the idea behind it was simple but effective, says Tomás. "I put together some new and old tracks I’ve played in my recent gigs." As such it is a fine snapshot of what to expect from him in the club right now - bold rhythms, dystopian moods and plenty of industrial, ambient and IDM influences. It's a physical selection that is constantly on the move and densely packed.

@biancalexis brings a whole new level to the world of eclectic DJing. Anyone who has regularly tuned into her radio sets for dublab or NTS will know that there is no limit to what she might play. It isn't just the electronic spectrum she traverses with ease, but also soul, synth-pop, folk, post-punk, soft rock and myriad other sounds. She also knows how to hold down a vibe in the club, either at her Standard Downtown LA residency or anywhere else around Europe. Later in summer, she will play at both Lente Kabinet Festival and then Dekmantel Selectors, but first...

Bianca keeps one foot firmly on the dance floor with her mix this week. That's not to say it is a traditional club set, but the whole thing is underpinned by a very seductive and danceable groove that is always slowly building. There are proto-house cuts, dusty and analogue 80s rhythms, flashes of acid and breezy, feel-good sounds that send you off on a high. It is a perfect taster of what to expect from this exciting break-out selector.