Took a very serious and much needed breather this past month- winding my way through Paris and Southern France, and then transitioning back into California through Napa Valley to help soften the blow. Much wine was drunk, many insanely good meals were had, saw friends, jumped into the Mediterranean, visited museums and cathedrals and mountains, and overall reminded myself how big and beautiful this world is and just how important it is to travel around it. With that in mind, I’ve got some more chill selections today. Some sounds for a BBQ or hanging at the beach, or maybe just keeping your sanity in traffic. Take a few deep breaths, enjoy the vibes, and give some props for the fact that I was able to include 2 musical artists with “Flamingo” in their name. Artwork today comes courtesy of Costas Spathis.

Ok today’s selections are mainly intended for late night after-hours hijinks and shenanigans- some heavy club sounds that are meant to pump loudly from oversized speaker stacks in big spaces filled with lots of bodies. That being said, you can often find me solo on my couch, with a whiskey on the rocks at midnight, headphones on blast, imagining the perfect rave and what song I should play next. Both experiences are pretty sweet in my book. A week back I was up in Portland playing some of these very songs at a Living Prism afterhours party that approached grimey psychedelic perfection, and if there’s anyway that I can share and spread that liberating debauchery through my wifi connection, count me in. Photo above comes courtesy of Milan Boonstra, check him out.

On to the tunes- we start things off with a downtempo future funk stomper from Anka, then the pace picks up with a new edit from Scrimshire’s latest collection. Bringing up the tempo a little more with the funky multi-textured sound of Klaves, then a funky afro house joint from the Kraak & Smaak boys. From here, things start to get really heavy… When entering the world of techno, a good place to start is Berlin duo Kullektiv Turmstrasse. Riva Starr is another one of those artists who manages to pull the soul out of a computer (or put the soul in there maybe?)- just drop this one on an unsuspecting crowd and wait for the grandaddy of all airhorns to pummel them into ass-shaking submission. Then we have something bouncey from Javi Reina, followed by a slice of UK ragga-bass bizniz from Moony, topped off with the grimiest joint of the lot from DJ Godfather & Deeon, then I had to sneak in this oldie from Ming & FS that I used to rinse repeatedly on 12″ back in the day (any D&B heads out there??? haha). Then there’s some recent heaters from Jax Jones, Go Freek, and a deep nasty acid wormhole from Artwork with a soulful First Choice sample that I still never get enough of. Finally, some pop-soul-house from Autograf with a bass synth that wins me over. Coming back down to Earth gently, I’ll let the final word here go to a highly slept on 80’s single that you may recognize from being sampled by Nero a while back, I of course prefer this oldie by a million miles.