Mixes Digest 17: Wreathing, Breathing

5 exceptional sets: liquid rhythms, comedown corkscrews, ambient revelations, and more

What is a mix for? Usually, I suppose, the answer’s pretty simple: for dancing, for clubbing, for cutting loose, for getting lost. Some of the world’s greatest mixes—some recorded, many experienced in the moment and never heard again—fall into that category.

But other mixes have other aims. They might trace an idea, or advance an argument, or pose a theory of a possible music that perhaps doesn’t exist in any one song, but comes fleetingly into focus in that particular constellation of tracks. Maybe they set a mood; maybe they pull the rug out. Maybe they burrow in, maybe they drill down, maybe they zoom out as wide as they can.

Most of today’s sets fall in one or more of those “other aims” categories:

• the artist behind one of this year’s finest electronic LPs unspools the morphologies beneath his non-Euclidean techno

• a beloved dancefloor experimentalist offers a soundtrack for the hours when the lights go up and things get weird

• a house and disco stalwart digs into the shadowiest corners of his dubstep and drum & bass collection

• a member of Germany’s Workshop crew turns in one of the dreamiest, most immersive ambient sessions I’ve heard in ages

• and, finally, a critic and a singer-songwriter ask what happens when you let the music breathe

Discoveries await: In one mix, I discovered a style of music that I’d never heard before—a centuries-old Mediterranean folk tradition that reminds me of Georgian polyphony, and sounds like it comes from another planet. In another, I stumbled across a group of Mongolian musicians from Xinjiang, China, playing a kind of ambient-folk post-rock; their song stopped me in my tracks. It might be the most beautiful thing I’ve heard all month.

Scroll on for all five sets.

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This one’s for the paying subscribers, as a thank you for your ongoing support. Paid subscriptions are $5 a month or $50 a year; perks include exclusive playlists for chilling and clubbing (now available on Deezer as well as Apple Music and Spotify); the ongoing Mixes Digest series; and full access to the archives, including interviews with Anthony Naples, Penelope Trappes, Stephen Vitiello, Longform Editions head Andrew Khedoori, drone titans Belong, Seefeel’s Mark Clifford, and more.