Dekmantel Podcast Series

Quest is one of those new school selectors who have taken the art of crate digging to an all-new level. Italian-born, Berlin-based but having spent time in London working at the legendary Vinyl Pimp, he has long been mining the depths of everything from UKG to outré techno, Italian hip hop to long-lost house. Importantly, he uses those sounds to tell his own stories, often with an air of mystery and intrigue that plays out like an adventure into the unknown. Many mixes follow a traditional arc of increasing energy levels but in this week's podcast, Quest plays with those expectations to build up and then pull back, threading together minimal rhythms then raw and crunchy wave sounds. Twisted electronics lead into celestial acid and the smooth and seductive sits next to the dark and edgy. It's a low-key, low-lit selection that draws from mutant strains of house, techno and electro that are both futurist and dystopian. Quest might be his moniker, but it is also a perfect description of his mission.

@djdanifox is at the heart of Lisbon's underground and a driving force in batida, the sound of the city's Afro-diasporic underground. It's a heavy sound with rhythms influenced by kuduro, tarraxo and Lisbon ghetto, the melodies of techno and percussive layers from Africa. Most recently Danifox has offered up Ansiedade, a second album on Príncipe Discos that explores space, hypnotic loops and rich instrumentation while never straying far from the dance floor. His own talk-singing adds a newly introspective layer to the sound that makes it all the more potent. This week's mix is both a superb batida primer for the newly initiated, but also a compelling overview of where the sound is at right now for long-time fans. In the space of 60 minutes, Danifox explores all avenues from the languid and loose to the pounding and physical. It's a mix that is always on the move as mystic flutes lead into tin-plated percussion, whirring synths melt into balmy late-night chords and broken rhythms become more seductive. As the days are heating up and summer hits full swing, there are few better soundtracks to an afternoon in the sun than this.

LA-based Canadian artist Jessy Lanza has brought dance and pop music together and elevated both art forms in the process. At the heart of her work are her own sensual vocals. They bring human warmth and emotion to vibrant and uptempo grooves and result in music that is both energetic and accessible yet personal and honest. Next to critically acclaimed studio albums for Hyperdub, she has made a fine entry into the DJ-kicks mix series and toured solo from Asia to Australia. Europe to North America. Her latest album is her broadcast and boldest yet - Love Hallucination features work from producers such as Pearson Sound, Jacques Greene, Tensnake, Paul White, and Jeremy Greenspan and conforms Lanza to be out in a class of her own. Lanza brings her feel-good vibes to the podcast series this week, not least with a couple of her own exclusive new cuts as well as one mysterious known gem early on. They add up to a perfect representation of her sound - the first half is a feel-good mix of retro-future boogie, glossy 80s r&b, party-starting funk bombs and many more irresistible moments of pure heat from Brenda and The Big Dudes, Debbe and The Code and Gino Soccio. Things then turn more towards the dance floor with deep house from Frankie Knuckles, bass-heavy rhythms from Addison Groove and a piano banger from Mall Grab. It's just the sort of happy, sunny mix you will be coming back to all summer long.

French-Canadian @mariedavidson_official never sits still for long. She is a Montreal native who has also lived in Berlin, and is one of the scene's most revered live acts but also transitioned into DJing with spectacular results. She makes it all from minimal wave to techno to electroclash whether working solo, as part of the Essaie pas duo, or alongside L'Œil Nu on Ninja Tune. Her own vocals often feature heavily in her work and as well as direct club material she has excelled in the long-player format with several standouts over the last decade. All of that creative genre abandonment is embodied in this week's mix, which is as punchy as they come. Lashings of squealing synths and hyper-speed electro-tech kick things off with real intent and the intensity never drops: there are dark punk bangers and synth-heavy kraut cuts next to pummelling deep techno punishers, more lithe disco and wave sounds and lashings of trance euphoria. What a ride.

@dj-koolt has been pivotal to the rise of his native Uruguayan scene ever since he started spinning in the 90s. Rooted in Montevideo, he made it one of the most exciting places to hear minimalist dance music. Its spiritual home is Phonotheque, the club he co-founded a decade ago and where he lays down his forward-thinking sounds to a devoted and hardcore fan base. The scene Godfather goes big for us this week with a two-hour deep dive into his sound. It perfectly showcases his silky transitions and ability to tell stories on the dance floor. Acid, breaks and techno are the foundational sounds but they are embellished in signature style with plenty of spaced-out designs, a sense of gritty industrial futurism and plenty of avant-garde electronics.

For @fafi-abdel-nour, music is a means of building community. The Syrian-born, Amsterdam-based artist looks to make a better future through human connections. He does so with his own LHBTQIA+ club night concept BUTTS at OOST in Groningen where he plays a free-spirited mix of records with real soul. They come from across the genre spectrum and mix up the old and the new, always with love as the messages and ecstatic sensations in high supply. Fafi has a way of effortlessly winning you over with his smooth grooves, and that is evident right from the start here: balmy house sweeps you up and douses you in positive cosmic vibrations and that sense of warmth never dissipates through faster, jazzier house, thumping euphoria and nonstop neon grooves. Every slick transition turns up the temperature a notch and takes you ever closer to real dance floor nirvana.

"Genre: Not Applicable" says one of Bogatá-born DJ and producer @bitterbabe's online bios, and she's not wrong. She mixes up and blends global club styles from Colombian guaracha to Venezuelan raptor house with high energy and rich percussion on labels like TraTraTrax and is a member of the ECO and Latitudes collectives. She is focussed on amplifying electronic artists and labels across Latin America while herself being on a near-constant tour of Europe's finest clubs. After a long time entrenched deep in the Miami scene, she recently made the move to Berlin. On this week's mix, Bitter Babe takes you on a wild ride through her unique rhythmic world. Everything she plays is defined by big drums, but how they fall and where they take you is always a thrill. You'll recognise hints of jungle, there are nods to techno and flashes of rave intensity but mostly these are contorted in between sounds that captivate mind and body with equal intensity.

Born and raised in New York but now transplanted to Berlin, @gabriellekwarteng has quickly become a Panorama Bar regular known for her eclectic radio shows. The move to Europe widened the scope of her DJ sets which tend to be high energy and punchy with plenty of techno, while on the airwaves she is likely to serve up a mix of boogie, Afro-disco, and neo-soul. That broad approach no doubt stems from growing up in the musical melting pot that is the Bronx, but also from childhood summers - and later a year studying abroad - in London. Add in a desire to champion the classic Black American genres and you have the foundations of the Kwarteng sound. All this is reflected in this week's mix which traverses global genres with effortless enthusiasm. Hefty bass cuts and weighty rhythms build into acid-tinged workouts, sounds of the diaspora spread across the course of 70 minutes and energy levels drop even when the mood changes. It's a great snapshot of a DJ at ease with worldly sounds and the ability to thread them all together into a communal dance floor experience.

London-based Tash LC funnels the sounds of Africa and the Diaspora into everything she does. From radio show host to DJ, label head to party promoter, she shines a fresh light on myriad scenes, subcultures and selections. In the club that might be a mix of Kuduro or Gqom, while on the airwaves you're as likely to hear tasteful Afro-jazz. Her own club nightsB oko! Boko! and Club Yeke - the latter of which also became a label - have championed the sounds of the global underground and earned Tash LC a deserving reputation as a top-level tastemaker. She crams some 40-odd tracks into this week's most lively of mixes. It's an adventurous trip that spans Kylie Minogue edits and leftfield club cuts, and weaves together jungle atmospheres from Donkey Kong with soul-drench rhythms. This is music for the dance floor, the back garden and the car. It is always sunny, has an effortlessly uplifting energy and fills the airwaves with positivity.

CCL (@ccl-url) has many tricks and plenty of surprises up their sleeve. London-born, US-bred but now Berlin-based, they are playful in what they play but serious about how they play it, whether that's head spinning 160bpm cut, "cowgirl-breaks or wiggle steppers." The key for this multidisciplinary artist and former New Forms festival curator is to find the similarities and differences between shades of sound and rhythm and exploit them to spellbinding effect. As a producer, they are no different and have always managed to find fresh in-between sounds on labels like Fever AM and Discwoman. The singular DJ steps up this week with almost two hours of pure sonic adventure. It's a perfect showcase of how they can soundtrack imaginary worlds from humid future jungles to robot dances in the sky. You'll hear rhythms you could never imagine and contort your body in impossible ways, all while admiring the dexterity of the DJ who has threaded together such a trippy trip.