Dekmantel Podcast Series dekmantel

Bogota-born, Berlin-based Tania Humeres Correa aka @thc_dj has perfected the art of high-energy sounds that get big room crowds close together. The Rinse FM host has her own party series La Noche with Byron Yeates and sibling DHC, and with the latter plays back-to-back as S-candalo. Acid, potent rave bangers, vocal gems and deeper delights all feature in her sets which always look to combine an unbridled sense of party with plenty of emotional nuance.

This week's mix was recorded just after the start of festival season so is aimed at getting your summer started in style. Staying true to her signature house sounds with plenty of warmth, euphoria and rolling grooves, it's a perfect representation of her ideal dance floor soundtrack. While leaning towards the energy of the main stage and "anthemic vastness," her selections never forget about the all-important elements of intimacy and soul which help the beats make a lasting impression.

Wave Arising (@wavearising) aka @69db aka Sebastian Vaughan has lived through many musical movements from hip hop to acid house, rave to hardcore. He began making his own as a drummer and drums remain at the heart of his weightless techno sounds all these years later. That was exemplified once more by his most recent album which is an exercise in rhythm that works equally on mind, body and soul. He has long been a part of several key techno collectives including Spiral Tribe, SP23, R-Zac and Dharma Techno and seeks to bring movement, trance and spirituality to the weightless sounds he makes and plays as Wave Arising alongside the dancer Kynsie.

This week he has put together a special live mix that has been fully improvised in the studio as opposed to a standard DJ selection. It comes ahead of his performance as 69db at Dekmantel Festival this year and is a perfect example of the intense and ritualistic music he makes: it's a tribal soundscape constructed from supple, elongated and heavy rhythms, spaced-out ambient pads and experimental dub movements that are all doused in psychedelic overtones which consumes all your focus.

Check Wave Arising's new album (The) Rooted Sky here: https://wavearising.bandcamp.com/album/the-rooted-sky

Polygonia's (@polygonia) creative world knows no boundaries. It is a project from Munich-based instrumentalist Lindsey Wang that incorporates production, DJing, illustration, graphic design, and photography. Wang is a core part of the IO collective which works all across the audiovisual spectrum, and also runs her own label QEONE. Pining her down musically is hard as she isn't defined by tempo, but instead blends ambient and techno into soundscapes defined by great sound designs, texture and emotion.

Wang's love of exploring a dizzyingly diverse array of musical codes and colours is evident on this week's mix. The 90-minute showcase is a portal into a hyper-real world - an alien yet organic soundtrack of sub-aquatic synths, bioluminescent melodies and pulsing deep space rhythms. Pads drip and ripple, drums are dubbed out but direct and the mood is always brilliantly curious.

Nick León (@NICKLEON) is an artful DJ and producer from Miami who has always operated at the experimental fringes of electronic music. Though he has always pushed at the boundaries he never fully loses sight of the dance floor while colliding reggaeton, techno, ambient, dubstep and hip-hop. He is a frequent collaborator and something of an album specialist who most recently took inspiration from Florida’s diverse sub-aquatic ecosystems on his superb Projections of a Coral City album alongside Coral Morphologic.

Nick will be joining us at Dekmantel Festival 2024 and this week's mix is a great way to keep you going until then. It's an hour of loose-limbed and largely genre-less rhythm with a naturalistic feel. There's a blend of filtered and futuristic voices and centuries-old dancing rituals that take you to the heart of an ancient rainforest, all with his signature Latin flavours and an undercurrent dembow-laced beats.

American artist Introspekt (@sageintrospekt) has a sound rooted in the darker side of UKG but comes at it from a unique perspective that incorporates elements of US garage and ballroom. The LA-born, NYC-based talent has now made her mark in Europe as a DJ and a producer on labels like Eris Drew and Octo Octa's T4T LUV NRG. Her style blends heavy basslines, diva vocals and well-crafted broken beats into something that harks back to the sounds that once came out of the likes of Paradise Garage and Club Zanzibar, always with a focus on bringing up her own community.

She says that the idea behind this week's mix was "to take the listener on a journey through tech-garage sonics and intergalactic dancehall rhythms." Tracks of her own and those from Skream, Holloway, Hatcha, Phuturistix and many more all plot a line through earth-shatteringly heavy rhythms from across the past, present and future of garage, dubstep and bass. It's a mix aimed at both body and head from this formidable talent and is a great taste of what to expect from her when she plays Dekmantel Festival later in the year.

Without people like Cashu (@carol-schutzer), São Paulo’s queer community wouldn't be thriving in the way that it is. The Mamba Negra label collective, party and label co-founder has been working tirelessly to provide safe spaces, creative outlets and raise funds for the LGBTQIA+ community for many years. She closely intertwines politics and dancing at events that reclaim urban spaces and now enjoys an international DJ diary that sees her mixing up breaks, techno, dancehall and electro across Amsterdam, Berlin, and places like our own Dekmantel Selectors.

She takes us on a similarly whirlwind tour with this week's mix, including some unreleased gems. It's a full-throttle party selection that fires through several house, club and techno rhythms - some bounce on big bass, some are twisted with raw percussion and some get stripped back to loopy drums and trippy sound designs. These global beats from the likes of DJ Wawa, Nick León, and Lewis Lowe add up to a colourful carnival atmosphere that sounds even better when the sun is shining.