For American artist @nick-klein, music is a gateway deep into our collective and individual psyches. He explores loudness as a form and "the sociology and ideology that presents in self-identifying music subcultures." He does this with his own @psychicliberation label, we all as with music on the likes of L.I.E.s and Viewlaxx. Next up for this prolific producer is a forthcoming double album - roughly his 15th overall - on IDEAL that will continue to explore the fringes of electronic sound with a bank of trusted modulated synths.

Of this week's mix, Nick says, "Happy Valentine's Day! The hour of material here is a collage of releases that have come out in the previous three years on my label Psychic Liberation, or the collaborative installment of releases between Enmossed and Psychic Liberation known as ENXPL. Here you have layers of material that map the cloud of my music listening consciousness. The interior includes artists who have participated on PL since the 2013 inception. Artists like Berlin's Wilted Woman, ENXPL artists Bridget Ferrill or Rene Nunez's Horoscope project, the PL Seoul based crew of Yeong Die, Jiyoung Wi, and Joyul, prolific Iranian brother band powerhouse of Saint Abdullah, and founder of the Enmossed label Glyn Maier are found braided through each other sonically.

"While a lot of the work here isn't directly oriented towards the club setting, it could be congruous as an epilogue to an evening's more psychedelic potential. It is interesting to see how broadly sonic aesthetics in electronic music have shifted in the absence of major clubs operating at capacity, if at all. I am pleased to share pieces of what has been in my head as an obsessive listening journey and the process of documentation throughout that time. Thanks to Dekmantel.”

@bjarki is relentless. The Icelandic artist has admitted in the past he is obsessed with making music. And since his debut in 2015 there has been a lot of it - six albums and plenty of EPs, mostly on Nina Kraviz's трип, !K7 and his own bbbbbb label. It is always bold and innovative whether taking the form of a straight up club banger or abstract IDM composition. He has released it under more than 10 different names, and what unifies it all is its experimental spirit.

You could say the same about this week's podcast, which begins with kiddie favourite 'The Birdie Song' before slipping into spoken word monologues, ice cold broken beats and twisted rhythms. They unfold at a relentless pace, with quick and seamless transitions from electro to techno to club music immersing you deep in Bjarki's unique sonic psyche. The cumulative effect is like a busy collage; an outpouring of captivating music from an overactive mind.

Sekan (@sekansekan) is, like many of his Dutch peers, known for his eclecticism. He has a particular fondness for exploring the music and artists of the Indonesian archipelago, but also a love for contemporary sounds, both of which are evidenced on his label Jiwa Jiwa. Over the years, it has grown into a multidimensional platform that also deals in photography, articles and films. Whatever he does, including his Operator Radio residency, you can be sure that Sekan mixes up rough edge analog textures with more sleek and modern digital sounds.

The first 85 minutes of this week's mix features some of the old and new Indonesian records that have fascinated him since his childhood, but also plenty of dubs, Chicago bangers and club stuff. The latter section then takes inspiration from coming back home from a club to unwind with slow jams, jazz-funk and Polish jazz. It slowly rebuilds and re-energises, eventually leaving you ready to head back to the club and do it all again.

Russian-born Anastasia Vtorova makes music that is autobiographical in style, but also in name. The titles of @machinewoman's tracks reference things like her favourite bouncers ('Camile From OHM Makes Me Feel Loved’) as well as her least favourite genres ('I Want to Fuck Tech House'). The beats themselves bare the hallmarks of the different chapters of her life, from the industrial she was first exposed to growing up in a post-Soviet environment to the late-night eeriness of Salford where she lived before moving amongst the minimal rhythms of Berlin. All this came out most recently in her distinctly glitchy, mechanical sounds and abstractions for toucan sounds with Derek Muro late last year.

This week's mix feels like a continuation of that, with spacious after-dark electronics, moody ambient and shadowy dub techno soundtracking a walk through a desolate network of abandoned warehouses. Ghoulish sounds lurk around every corner as the pace picks up, with the occasional ray of light, drip of water or hallucinatory synth pulling you ever further into her world. It's a fascinating place to be.

Roniere Santos was born and raised in the favelas of São Paulo, Brazil. The streets on which he grew up were often alive with music from local rap heroes, funky old school dance legends and heralded MCs such as Proibidão, Primo and Barriga. It is those sounds that inform and infuse the music he now makes and plays as RHR (@rhrmusiq), whether it's electro with a self-proclaimed ghetto twist or techno with hints of grime. After a debut on OMNIDISC in 2019, RHR has self rebased his music which seems only right given that it operates in its own musical universe.

The Brazilian invites us deep into that world on this week's mix, which is a 90-minute exploration of broken rhythms and scuffed-up textures. There are shades of everything from club to techno, gqom to jungle as the sounds unfold with a constant sense of movement that keeps you on your toes. Later on, rap and hip hop switch up the vibe and slow the tempo, but your body will keep on popping. This is raw, physical music that shows off a very different side of the Brazilian underground.

@facta & @k-lone93 have been on a roll recently. Their Wisdom Teeth label has seen them put out not only excellent music from Tristan Arp, but also Facta's brilliant downtempo album Blush and K-Lone's recent Zissou EP. Both hail from London but are now Bristol-based and they mix up many of the different styles you'd expect from those two musical hotbeds. Everything from 2-step to Baltimore, post-dubstep to deep house gets distilled into their sets and productions, but always with well-swung drums and high-pressure bass.

The pair kick off the New Year for us with a nimble mix that moves smoothly through glossy house depths, stripped-back broken beats and elastic rhythms. There is always a rich layer of percussion, sweet vocal or elegant melody burrowing deep into your brain while the beats keep your body happy. It's a perfectly persuasive listen that eases you off the sofa and back to the dance floor in no time.

@sky_h1 dropped her debut album Azure at the start of December. It was a genre-busting statement that built on all the sounds she has been exposed to since the start. Drum & bass, techno, grime and dubstep all informed the rhythms while her own life experiences contributed to the album's rich emotion. Next to making club music for labels like Creamcake and PAN's sub-label Codes, the Brussels artist has also written for galleries, films and concerts so is adept at making sounds that evoke in a range of different settings.

Across her eighty-minute podcast, SKY H1 strikes a perfect balance between potent drum breaks and heady ambient designs. Tracks float through the cosmos then come banging down to earth on a bed of heavy bass. It's a mix that is as well suited to being lost in deep thought as it is thrashing about on the dance floor. Finding emotional nuance amongst such physical sounds is exactly what SKY H1 does best.

Find out more about SKY H1 through: https://skyh1.net/

Each year, we ask a few artists from our Dekmantel Selectors line-up to deliver a mix in anticipation of the new edition. First up in this year’s series is Garage Noord resident and LYL radio show host @merelrhizoom. As a proper connoisseur of modular synth tracks and avant-garde compositions, merel rhizoom tends to navigate the musical stratosphere between what one could refer to as “weird psybient”, hypnotic jungle, trance downtempo or industrial breaks with implausible ease in her selections.

The mix at hand makes a good case for doing what feels right: merel rhizoom told us that she “initially was very tempted to make a more dance-oriented mix”, but then decided to go into a different direction: “focussing on (modular) synthesis of veterans such as Max Loderbauer, Robert Aiki Low, Andreas Tilliander and Driftmachine, while on the other hand including more avant-garde compositions by Jon Hassell, Oren Ambarchi, Upperground Orchestra and others”. What already sounds good on paper, has turned out to be a mesmerizing and thoroughly mind-altering listening session – enjoy it with your eyes closed and mind open.

Glasgow's @fergus_clark has a depth of musical knowledge way beyond his years. He is one-quarter of the 12th Isle label, party and radio collective and digs deep into everything from early techno to musique concrete to obscure exotica. Back in 2017 he released a still essential tape on Tasker's 88T label and a thrilling compilation with JD Twitch, Miracle Steps (Music from the 4th World). Both of these releases are indicative of how Clark puts together music with a sense of storytelling, scene-setting and endless mysticism.

This week's mix sure does give you a sense of exploration, of journeying through new worlds somewhere in the global south. The music is humid and wet, with tribal vocal chants and digital synths paired with indigenous instrumentation. As you get deeper into the aural jungle, the drums get bigger, proto-house rhythms make you move and you end up at a steamy tropical rave. It is another accomplished and subversive mix from this ever more renowned DJ.

@zvrra is an avant-garde artist by anyone's standards. Her background as a video game developer has a clear influence on the music she makes. That can be anything from industrial to techno, witch house to hip hop, but most often her sounds exist in the intricate spaces in between all that. Her perfectly entitled November album Bizarroland on Avian was a fine example of that, and one united by an eerie darkness that kept you looking over your shoulder.

But this week's mix is full steam ahead through a shadowy world of grit and grime. It's a one-hour techno excursion that explores myriad different rhythms from flat-footed to floating, broken to brutal. It is unrelenting from start to finish, building the tension through a mix of texture and tempo, pulling back then going again just when it matters. It speaks of DJ with a unique sense of control and mastery of darkness.

To learn about what inspired the mix, how it was put together, the influence of video games on Zvrra's music and about her recent EP, head over to our website to read a quick interview with the artist herself: https://dekmantel.com/editorial/dekmantel-podcast-363-zvrra