Dekmantel Podcast

Recording of John Talabot's set at Dekmantel Festival 2019.

Recording of Young Marco's set at Dekmantel Festival 2018.

Recording of Helena Hauff's & DJ Stingray's set at Dekmantel Festival 2016.

Recording of Lena Willikens' set at Dekmantel Festival 2016.

GAIKA (@gaikasays) has been hailed as one of Britain’s most vital rappers. His confrontational music — and writing — is proudly Black, addressing as it does issues of the immigrant experience, gentrification and violence. It’s been called everything from gothic dance hall to industrial electronics for the way it distills Caribbean traditions and the contemporary sound of London, while he sees himself more of an afropunk with eyes very much on the future. Next to a full length and a number of EPs on Warp, this month he has collaborated with NAAFI affiliates on his new EP 'Seguridad' — which is out now —, while his collective The Spectacular Empire continues with its series of streams aimed at celebrating Black culture and raising money for Black causes.

Over the course of an hour on this week’s mix, GAIKA serves up a positive musical selection. There are times when things get impossibly smooth, but pained passages often follow. It means one minute glossy r&b and purple funk fest you up, then gorgeous original instrumentals and sombre strings bring you back down. Complex and wide-ranging, it’s a mix that goes way beyond club functionality, instead managing to tell the sort of personal stories that real mixtapes should.

Talismann (@talismannrecords) is the techno alias of the Dutch house artist Makam. Under this name he makes dark, dubby, wormhole techno that is designed for dance floor meditation, and he exclusively serves it up on his own self titled label. The man behind the music stays in the shadows, and while his output is often heavy and doom laden, it is also alluring mysterious and atmospheric in a way that is never too oppressive.

Today we're treated to a special mix filled with up-to-now unreleased tracks from Talismann's forthcoming, multi-part album 'Percussion'. Part 1 lands today on Bandcamp, however, with more to follow later in summer. Hearing all this material together in a mix, as the artist indeed, is a special treat which makes for a perfectly sequenced trip through empty industrial spaces, thronging warehouses and alien planets. It is hugely rhythmic, compelling techno, but is finished with a subtle sense of sound design that makes it as cerebral as it is physical.

talismann.bandcamp.com/album/percussion-part1

Jamie 3:26 (@jamie3too6) has been a pivotal part of the Chicago scene for decades. Hailing from the South Side, he has been immersed in the city’s musical culture since day one, and not long after started to help shape it with his own expressive DJ sets and edits. Many of them made it into A Taste of Chicago on BBE, a compilation he put together of his own early takes on Windy City mainstays like Chip E, Jungle Wonz and Braxton Holmes back in March. Over the years, he has held various residencies in the city and soon went on to break out onto the international circuit, where he continually represents his hometown sound with real authority.

Opening up with what sounds like a snippet from a pastor’s sermon, there is plenty of real life spirituality in this mix from the off. The ensuing two hours are a real lesson in groove and emotion, a panoply of house, funk, soul and disco that is loose limbed and expressive but also masterfully sequenced so as to tell a real story. It is a wonderfully widescreen representation of a city from someone who knows it as well as anyone, and one that will have you cutting loose and shifting shapes in no time.

@julianahuxtable continually crosses boundaries and breaks down borders. Her multidisciplinary art takes in writing, performing, poetry, DJing and running the Shock Value nightlife project in New York, where the Texan currently lives. She explores themes of history, the body, the internet and much more, often with a strong sense of personal identity. Next to solo exhibitions she has authored two books, worked as a Visiting Artists Program lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is involved with a number of collectives that challenge gender norms, interrogate notions of race and engage with socio-political issues and sexuality, often in visceral ways.

This week's mix is just as direct and physical. It is a sound college filled with rage and confrontation, where brutalist industrial textures and squealing synths crash into banging techno. Human voices are mangled into walls of white noise and uncontrollable machines run riot in what could be a soundtrack to the end of the world, or the start of a new one.

Welsh singer, musician and producer Kelly Lee Owens (@kellyleeowens) has come a long way since her former life as a nurse. That was during her teens, before she went on to work in London's Pure Groove Records, play bass in shoegaze band History of Apple Pie and then link with Daniel Avery to provide vocals on his Drone Logic album. Those sessions had a big impact and served as the catalyst that fully converted Owens to techno. In 2017, her self titled debut album confirmed she was a vital new voice and picked up critical acclaim. Showcasing a bouncy, pop laced take on the genre, it was truly unique and will be followed up by new album Inner Song in August this year.

Ahead of that comes a mix that plays with bendy bass and rubber kick drum patterns that can go from club ready one moment to more uncanny the next. Drones, resonant frequencies and a real grasp of empty space and absorbing atmosphere all define the journey, which means there is plenty of time to think, get drawn in and lost in sound.

@dannydaze has proven incredibly hard to pin down since he first emerged. After starting down a path that very quickly took him to the best clubs in the world but off the back of a sound that wasn't really his, he has managed to rewrite perceptions. After deciding to do things his own way, at his own pace, he is now known for what he really loves: techno, electro and IDM. Just recently he continued his collaborative work with Brazilian RHR on four dark, gritty and evocative cuts on OmniDisc, and has more music on the way soon on Schematic Records.

This mix hints at what to expect from that EP, says Danny. "Due to the current conditions, I decided to go with chill zone session for this one mixed live with a bunch of the styles that influenced me over the last 20 years. Went a bit more trip-hop/IDM/electro with it which points to the direction the upcoming EP and album later in the year. Hope everyone has a nice week." So strap in for two freewheeling hours of interplanetary sonics, churning rhythms and otherworldly cinematics that will start your week right.