NIKS (@niksbad) is as dedicated as anyone to furthering dance music culture. Hailing from south-east London via Bath, NIKS has long proven her curatorial skills with radio shows on BBC Radio 1, Rinse, and NTS. Her idiosyncratic blends of ‘90s groovy, rhythmic sounds and forward-thinking, underground-leaning soundscapes have brought her to some of the world’s most revered clubs. After contributing music to various compilations, last year she explored bass-heavy sounds with her first solo EP on Or:la’s Céad label. Beyond her work as a musician, NIKS also co-founded the Black Artist Database, a crowd-sourced list of Black-owned labels, artists, and producers designed to amplify and uplift talent.
Ahead of her debut at the Dekmantel Festival this year, NIKS serves up a 90-minute window into her current musical world, including her own forthcoming productions in a deep, dub-infused journey into hypnotic techno and house rhythms that intertwine to create a warm, supple soundscape. Its seamless flow takes in sounds from the past, present, and future, and they all encourage you to move and meditate in equal measure."
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1:25:40
Dekmantel Mix 489 - Angel D'lite
South London's @angeldlite is a musical thrill-seeker. Her colourful take on rave is all about big moments, big energy, and big love. The newly installed High Hoops resident effortlessly straddles genres. From piano house to emotive trance, always delivering uplifting moods and euphoric drops that turn her dance floors into spaces of pure joy.
This June, she’ll be closing down the Poppy area at Lentekabinet. Ahead of that, she serves up one of her signature sessions for our series: a jam-packed ride through every corner of rave culture. Expect strobe-lit synths, rapturous vocals, thumping bass, and playful twists. It’s the perfect soundtrack for the road to Het Twiske—and a summer full of fun.
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1:28:52
Dekmantel Mix 488 - Oscar Mulero
@oscarmulero is one of those artists whose sound is immediately identifiable. It has had an unwavering depth, headiness and atmospheric richness to it for more than 30 years, which is a remarkable achievement few can match. A famous non-conformist, the Spaniard's top-tier three-deck mixing skills and ability to distil techno to its most hypnotic form have also long stood him apart, as have his Polegroup and Warm Up labels.
Mulero's consistency of sound means you know what you're going to get with this mix: spaced-out, layered and deep techno brilliance. Whether more dubby and roomy or glitchy and intense, it's music for both mind and body from one of the scene's most low-key but high-class veterans. Turn it up loud and look forward to more of the same when he plays at Dekmantel Festival later this year.
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1:02:20
Dekmantel Mix 487 - k means
Bristol-based @k_means operates at the fringes of electronic music. It's not tempo and genre that unites their sound, but more an exploration of mood and texture underpinned by bass-heavy low ends and hypnotic rhythms. The Noods, Rinse FM and Kiosk Radio regular is also resident at Bristol's Psychotherapy Sessions and will debut at Dekmantel Festival where you should fully expect to be taken into plenty of unknown musical territory.
It is the same with their mix for us this week - a wild trip into futuristic drum patterns and interplanetary sounds that melt the mind and contort the body. There is a constant push and pull between the organic and the synthetic with tribal percussion and warped vocals brushing up with bleeping synth modulations and experimental minimalism. It's a magnetic selection that's as much an imaginary movie soundtrack as it is a dance floor escape.
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1:42:06
Dekmantel Mix 486 - Mattikk
The next Dekmantel mix is a wild melting pot of dark, murky techno grooves by @mattikk. A pillar of the Amsterdam underground, the Garage Noord resident has a long history of DJing in the city and is closely connected to your favorite techno labels. He’s the mind behind Delsin Records' Mantis series, collaborating with artists like Forest Drive West, Konduku, Lemna, and Dino Sabatini.
Drawing on UK sound system culture, his selections always carry an experimental edge, whether diving into deep Italian techno or ambient. Usually, he crafts mixes for immersive listening pleasure, but here he makes a rare turn to the dance floor, inspired by his closing set on the UFO2 stage at last year's Dekmantel Festival. Over an hour of powerful, driving grooves and subtle details, sprinkled with new tunes and some personal favorites that span low-end-heavy electro and broken beats.
Tracklist/
Dasha Rush - 100 Hearts
O.utlier - Evoparation
Tammo Hesselink - Harbour Launch
R-010 - Exhaust Pipes (Absis Remix)
Amotik - Iktalis
Kon Janson - Unbound Perspective
Saku Niamh - Unreleased
Roseen - Separation
Stenny - Hazy Grove
CAIV - Shimmer
Broken English Club - Ghost
Konduku - Unreleased Remix
Agonis - Unreleased
James Ruskin - Lahaine (O/V/R Remix)
Konduku - Unreleased
Firn - Rakaposhi
Vand - Futureshock
Gez Varley - Purgę
DJ Slip - Spice
VC-118A - Unreleased
Carrier - 2 Slow
Kellen303 - Pinehearse
Fret - Stuck
Ireland