2024: sets of the year

CCL – A Night in the Skull Discotheque

Beginning a lot of talking about what a incredible year CCL had, this mix is a awfully close perfect — depth when you need it, works as a warmup and as a banger, heavy joints when you need them, etc etc etc. I continue to be very late on “bass music”, but I am still pretty happy about it.

Fauzia – RA 926

Lush, lush, and then lush again; lots of her own work, and all of it is luminous and wonderful and downtempo and still luminous again.

Full Circle – Back To Disco Valley (The Slow Goa Mix)

Recorded something like 12 years ago, this surfaced in 2023, and snuck into rotation pretty much instantly — draws the lines between Italo weirdness and psy weirdness, and “slow nrg” of pretty much every sort.

JD Twitch – All Arthur Russell DJ set, live at The Barbican, London

Another sign that I’m in middle age: I’m starting to get Arthur Russell. But for real, this set is wonderful because it is hopeful and uptempo without crushing the high end — enough so that when a lone Talking Heads track comes in at the end, it feels like an EDM banger.

Objekt – Live @ Nowadays, April 7

Yep, another one of these, if anything deeper than the last one.

Tom Moulton – The Sandpiper Mix

This is it, maybe the first disco DJ mix ever, and the one that launched Moulton’s career, which helped shape the course of disco history — and it’s just on the internet, and it’s kind of great, and of course it was made literally by hand, by splicing tape.

The Deep Ark – The Deep Ark

One hell of an achievement, maybe a little bit much, but my goodness, the apotheosis of the 1990s? Maybe, maybe.

Honorable honorable honorable mentions to CCL – Live at Freerotation, Nono Gigsta – The House Of Crocodiles Part 2 (Live at Freerotation), (Freerotation?!), Loidis – RA965, Haruka – XLR8R 845, KRN – RA951, and Laurel Halo – Awe on NTS – 05-21-2024.

(What on earth are these podcasts series going to do for episode 1,000? I well remember the conceit of record labels doing CAT001, say — it’s spectacular that a few places are going to do it).