Jonny Rock knows how to entertain any sort of dance floor. The Worldwide FM radio host runs Turkish focussed labels Hamam House and Disco Hamam and has very much driven the renewed focus in Eastern music as a result. His record collection is a treasure trove of knowledge when it comes to unusual scenes and sounds and will put anyone’s to shame. He has held residences at places as diverse as Classic at The End, Key at Phonica and Herbal, and his own productions take in whatever he wants, be it house on The Nothing Special or techno on ESP Institute.

There is no holding back over the course of his podcast, which gets straight to business with some wild breakbeat action. All forms of house from jacked up to deep, celebratory to acid then get seamlessly linked together into something that feels very much informed by the past but in no way a slave to the classics. It’s the sound of a man who very much knows what he’s doing in top form.

Although a relative newcomer to the DJ game, JASSS has really managed to shake up the dance floor in the last couple of years ( not least with her residency at Berghain's Säule). Releases on Anunnaki Cartel, Mannequin and iDEAL Recordings have showcased her rugged and gritty approach to EBM, industrial, acid and techno. Between those releases she has covered experimental sound art, soundscapes and more club focusses beats, all while playing to her own rules and fighting her own internal battles.

On her Dekmantel podcast the Spaniard goes direct to the club with visceral drums and stark synths. It’s a mix that hurries you along for the ride, jostling you with breakbeats and rave stabs then rewriting your brain with prickly techno before allowing you a moment to breath in some more elastic and rubbery house music. It’s always full flavour, high impact stuff that is brilliantly compelling and strobe lit throughout, whether stepping at half time or falling over itself in a race to the end.

Kasra V’s unique fusion of eastern and western sounds has made him one of the most intriguing artists of the day. The Iranian has established himself with an NTS show (that is more than 100 episodes deep) and DJ sound that mixes old school UK rave with Belgian techno, acid house, trance and eastern grooves that make for spellbinding experiences. In 2018 he collaborated with Dopplerekkekt and is working on a reissue compilation series that focuses on Iranian sounds as well as original dance material.

Later this year he will play for us at Dekmantel Selectors so you can get an insight into what to expect on this week’s podcast: It’s a whirlwind hour of trance-inducing electronics. Zoned out synths are layered up over smooth rolling drums, with sci-fi references and progressive grooves lifting you ever higher. Acid flashes, retro motifs and slick mixing all make it a perfectly absorbing trip.

Afrodeutsche’s music is a collision of many different worlds. She herself is British born, but with Ghanaian, Russian and German heritage, while her influences and inspirations span classical piano, film and documentary music. Based in Manchester, she is a composer and producer with a regular show on NTS that explores her love of techno and electro and which goes from dark and tough to jacked up and broken.

Her mix for us is a 90 minute excursion through her musical mind: it’s a busy one that veers from ghostly ambiance to serrated machine music. While a subtle hardcore nostalgia colours the airwaves one moment, decidedly forward facing bass music will twist you inside out the next, and the whole thing is run through with a sense of menace and mystery that is perfect for shady, strobe-lit clubs.

Efdemin has all but perfected his deep, expertly reduced take on house and techno. The German artist has mastered his form over the course of numerous 12”s on various labels, including three albums on Dial Records. They are intricate, mind bending affairs that take you in on yourself and constantly explore new ground. His hybrid mix CD on his own Naïf imprint and Curle last year was another career high point, and recently he has turned himself towards experimental and microtonal composition with yet more fascinating results. February 2019 will see Ostgut Ton release New Atlantis, his latest album and one inspired by Francis Bacon’s unfinished 17th century novel of the same name. Promising to fuse his left-of-centre take on dance music with a new found passion for experimental sound art, it’s the latest chapter in a fascinating artistic story.

His podcast for us is a decidedly club-focussed mix, featuring the sort of warped synths and underlapping grooves you would expect of the man. There are multi-layered tracks of percussion, sound design and stringy rhythms to start, then things slip into long, draw out passages of tunnel vision techno before the drums begin to hit harder to carry you home. At times playful, at others deadly serious, it sums up the career of Efdemin perfectly.

Beta Librae is the brightest star in the Libra constellation, but also one of the brightest stars in techno. Bailey Hoffman hails from New York City and arrived in 2015 pretty much with a fully formed and decidedly singular sound. Releasing albums and EPs on labels like Incienso and Allergy Season, she draws on ambient, downtempo, new age and house music to stir up weird atmospheres and slow motion grooves. Lots goes on between her lazy kicks, and it all serves to sink you into a cavernous and expansive world of beautiful melody and loose percussion.

Over the course of ninety minutes, Hoffman’s wide sphere of influences are all exposed. There’s kaleidoscopic techno that traps you in a hall of mirrors as melodies refracted all around, ramshackle drums that are on the verge of collapse and murky house music that’s gritty and grimy. The transitions between these worlds are subtle, and for every passage of dark and dirty texture there are moments of light emitting beauty that keeps the whole thing moving. This is club music from a whole new perspective.

As soft and dreamy as their moniker may be, Clouds actually make some of the most brutal and destructive techno out there. The Scottish duo of Calum MacLeod and Liam Robertson have been doing so with ever more abrasive surfaces and twisted drums since 2010, releasing on the likes of Turbo, Opal Tapes and Soma. Two of their three albums, though, have come on Speedy J’s Electric Deluxe. The latest, Heavy The Eclipse, is a conceptual affair that comes with a brilliantly realised website telling the story of a city that was left to rot after social and economic collapse. This “post-industrial hell-future” is taken over by Germans and renamed Neurealm, and is soundtracked across 14 perfectly dark and dystopian pieces featuring snippets of vocals, tinges of euphoria, passages of desolate dub and frazzled industrial noise.

In their mix for us, the pair continue with that bleakly immersive sonic imagery by using unreleased material only! Nightmarish screams are obscured by scuzzy sonic blizzards, rave synths spray about above overdriven drums and hardcore and dub culture references often poke through the mire. It’s an all out aural assault that takes you to the heart of a grotty, strobe-lit warehouse in the very dead of night.

After numerous compilation appearances, the first half of 2018 saw object blue put out her first two solo EPs—‘Do you plan to end a siege?' on Tobago Tracks and 'REX' on Let’s Go Swimming.’ Their impact, next to her spellbinding live shows, was so significant that by the end of the year she was one of the most talked about new artists around. The reason is that the Chinese sound designer contorts her drum machines and smudges her synths with utter disregard for any rules and lands somewhere fresh and new; some grey area between broken techno, warped bass and experimental club.

A sonic meticulousness always manages to shine through object blue’s work, despite what can often be carnage beneath the surface. And that’s the case with the one hour session we end the year with here: it’s a symphony of layers that variously sooth and seduce or rough you up with rhythm. Despite the shades of sound art and musical collage that are never far away, a dance floor narrative underlines the whole thing and will keep you moving well into 2019, a year which promises plenty for object blue.

There are a great deal of things you can say about Dan Snaith. His list of achievements would burnish any CV: a doctorate in mathematics under one arm, and some of the 21st century’s most celebrated electronica albums under the other. He manages to juggle festival headline slots across the world with the live iteration of Caribou, while slipping out timeless dancefloor burners and one of the last ever FabricLive CDs as Daphni. Oh, and he’s a super friendly guy too.

That experience – and crowd-charming magnetism – can be heard all over today’s Dekmantel Podcast, a three-hour tour de force of Daphni in peak-time mode at the peak of summer. Recorded on Sunday of Dekmantel Festival 2018, in the middle of a humble-superstar-sandwich of Jamie XX / Floating Points, Snaith glides between rave stabs, strutting funk, stirring soul, global grooves and everything else under the (very warm) sun. Here’s to the next decade of Dan’s dominance!

Amsterdam’s Mendel doesn’t want the headlines, he wants your heart. He’s a DJ who likes to make connections between sounds and scenes that span entire continents and generations. He works the floor into a loved-up mass that doesn’t know where it is going next. He often drops his own well crafted edits into his sets with a sympathetic touch that continues to win him an ever more ardent fan base.

Next to a rare knowledge of soul and disco, he also loves house music. All these elements come together on his mix for us, which is another impossibly nimble jaunt through the ages. Energetic disco, heart swelling house and breezy, afro tinged groovers all sit smoothly together with acid jack and uplifting songs. Add in some old classics and future anthems that the 'ID?' crew will die for, and you have a perfectly tasteful party mix that works in any setting, during any season.