Dekmantel Podcast

Saharan artist @azu-tiwaline is inspired by the desire to explore her origins in the Tunisian desert. She did this to magnificent effect on Draw Me A Silence, a debut album released earlier in 2020 that unified traditional Amazigh music with contemporary dub cultures and hypnotic techno sounds. Defined by an ever-present polyrhythmic chiaroscuro - the contrast between light and dark - it's a mysterious album that gets you in a trance and encourages inward reflection.

The same sense of intoxicating repetition and minimalism runs through this week's podcast. It is an often multi layered listen that has stringy, drawn out rhythms. What sounds like ancient ethic percussion and instrumentation mingles loosely with moody synth drones. Naturalistic field recordings - water, birds, vocal chants - enrich the mix next to trippy studio effects and make for something utterly beguiling. Somehow old yet new, surreal but earthy, these disparate worlds rarely collide in such harmonious ways.

@carrotgreen is very much a product of his Brazilian homeland. He makes and plays music that can place you deep into a freaky and humid jungle techno party, or transport you to a chilled out beach comedown. He played a masterful set of mellowness for us at our Sao Paulo festival way back in 2017 and by then he had already released a range of organic, deep and Latin flavoured house EPs. His latest release came in July on DJ Ground's Japanese Chill Mountain label and featured a pair of "murky late-night slow dub affairs," that get right under your skin.

As this week's podcast proves, Carrot Green can pack all of those sounds and more into a one hour mix that will leave you breathless. It starts out with intoxicating and worldly ambient sounds but soon gets stuck into exotic house then slick and slamming techno. After working you into a frenzy with tight mixing and superb selections, he pulls back to mystic ancient dub sounds that leave you perfectly enchanted.

Italian-Dutch composer Aimée Portioli (@grandriver) is part of a new breed of artist who is meticulous in the way she sculpts and designs her sounds. Along with the likes of Donato Dozzy and Neel - who run the Spazio Disponibile label she debuted on in 2017, and returned to in 2018 with first album Pineapple - she imbues her deep rhythms with ambient beauty, classical minimalism and a real sense of symphony. She is a poly-instrumentalist who mixes tradition and formality with contemporary experimentalism, and also runs her own label One Instrument, releases on Ghostly and Longform Editions, and is an occasional A/V performer who is at home at the world's most avant garde clubs and festivals.

This week, Grand River takes us on an ambient journey as meandering and meditative as her alias suggests. It's a study in absorbing sparsity, where beautiful drones are layered up next to rippling chords. Found sounds drift in and out of ear shot and delicate keys turn into vast walls of ominous sound. The whole mix is like a melting glacier, in constant but subtle motion that leaves you in an utterly different place from where you started.

One of @jossymitsu's skills is her versatility. She was born and raised in Birmingham before moving to London, so has been exposed to, and immersed in, a wide array of scenes. From jungle to 2step, techno to house, rave to leftfield, she has knowledge of it all and never fails to throw it down in electrifying style. Her Rinse FM radio show has proved that over the last few years, and earlier this year the 6 Figure Gang associate made her production debut on Astral Black's Frass FM compilation with the brilliantly bumping 'Whirl.'

That track's cavernous bass and sparse late night atmosphere also characterises this week's mix. It's a selection filled with broken beats and metallic hits that lurch through desolate landscapes. As much as she can nail an absorbing atmosphere, Mitsu also knows just how to raise the levels by banging through flailing jungle, wild rave and blistering techno. But whether the hits are crisp and the kicks taught, swampy synths and low end wobble blast from the speakers or dark and dirty breaks bust out of the mix, this is pure body music that cannot fail to ignite your dancing spirit.

It was local word of mouth that elevated Australian @katemiller from local to international notoriety. Her ability to fluidly jump genres and eras always leaves dance floors in a spin, and after emerging in Melbourne she followed the music to Berlin when she eventually became resident at the Oscillate party at ://about blank. Those sets allowed her the freedom to explore and pick up a fan base, and now she is someone who tells long and winding stories, with selections and feelings that define her sets more than tempo or technicality.

The 90 minute session Kate lays down for us is perfectly warm and rhythmic. It's united by rubbery kicks and deep, warm sub bass, but ever changing kick patterns and synths that range from absorbing and ambient to dark and paranoid always keep things moving. It is the sound of a DJ who is always in control, a masterclass in tension and release that means you're always on the edge, excited for what is to come.

Tracklist:

FFT - Forward

Ulla - Leaves and Wish

D. Tiffany - 4leaf

DJ Sacom - Wisdom

DJ Python - ooophi

Toma Kami - Unreleased

ITOA - Top Deck

Spooky - J - Pfer

YOUTH - Diamonds

Facta - 4C Loop

Cop Envy - Diving Board

Mr. Mitch - Need More Fashion Friends

SP:MC - Vintage

Low End Activist - 19STR8BK

Sepehr - Unfold Your Myth

Kush Jones - Pre-Club Workout (feat. DJ Swisha & James Bangura)

James Bangura - Broken Mind

Jana Rush - Midline Shift

DJ Fulltono - Melt into the Floor

Raime - Ripli

SNKLS - Isandula

Flore - Uncoded Language

FFT - Fask

Toma Kami - Unreleased

El Trick - Ko ko dak dak

J. Majik - Hold You

exael - Composure

Kate Miller - Parker Street

Recording of DJ Nobu's set at Dekmantel Festival 2017.

Recording of Planetary Assault Systems' set at Dekmantel Festival 2013.

Recording of Terence Dixon's set at Dekmantel Festival 2019.

Recording of Surgeon's set at Dekmantel Festival 2015.

Recording of Donato Dozzy's set at Dekmantel Festival 2016.