My Year In Top 3s!
Here’s a whole load of random Top 3s to sum up my year, interspersed with a photographic record of the Top 8 Happiest Joes from 2023, because it’s my newsletter and I’ll do what I want to.
Top 3: Best tracks I heard someone else play
I have a thing about hearing other people play great tracks and not asking them what they are, even when we’re close friends. Part of it is of course innate shyness and not wishing to intrude, even though I myself am relatively free with giving people IDs. But as I’ve got older, another conviction has grown in me that has become part of my loose DJing philosophy: if you are patient, things will come when they come, and it will be all the sweeter if you don’t rush it. I don’t need to know everything or own everything as soon as I hear it — that’s not what makes individual tracks special, or what I do special — and not knowing what something is feels kind of luxurious compared to immediately finding out and soon discarding it… THAT BEING SAID, sometimes someone plays something that I just have to know straight away what it is, and will take the opportunity to ask. So here are three examples of when I did exactly that.
1) Shinichiro Yokota - ‘Sora Sky Magic’ (Chima Isaaro, Musicbox, 18 March)
When Chima invited me to play at her residency at Musicbox back in March (covered in detail here), we each played two alternating sets of 90 minutes. After her opening section and my relatively reserved continuation, she came back on and kicked things into high gear with this tune. It instantly became one of the best things I’d hear all year — a funky acid boogie version of the music from Bowser’s Kingdom, swag quotient turned up to the max. I love it so much.
2) Italojohnson - ‘05B1’ (Gwenan, Renate, 28 July)
Gwenan played both sides of this record during her warm-up at Renate and when I listened back to the recording I had to ask what it was. I remembered ‘05B1’ as a distinctly housey moment featuring the vocal from Zhané’s ‘Groove Thang’ (Huey Mnemonic’s edit of which topped my 2021 EOY chart). Since G told me what the record was, I have played both sides relentlessly and show no signs of getting sick of either of them.
3) Bouffant Bouffant - ‘Night Blue’ (Bouffant Bouffant, Honcho Campout, 20 August)
There’s something extra satisfying about asking someone what something is only to be told that it’s their own tune. That happened at Campout when this came on during Bouffant Bouffant and Jacob Meehan’s Sunday morning set as Longitude, and I went over to ask Brett what it was. I didn’t even know he made music so it was a lovely moment of discovery.
BONUS: Unknown, Tama Sumo, Panoramabar, 26 December
This bonus is an illustration of one of those situations where I decide not to ask what something is, and then regret it afterwards. Around midday on Boxing Day at Panoramabar, ten hours deep into an amazing session of straight up house music that had culminated in a closing b2b2b between Tama Sumo, Chris Cruse and Kleo, Tama Sumo played what for me was the track of the whole party. The bar was set high: earlier in the morning we’d been treated to ‘Mortal Trance’, ‘Happy House’, ‘Hallelujah Anyway’ and of course many more great tunes I didn’t know.
But then Kerstin dropped this absolute stonker of a disco-boogie-house tune with a snap and a fizz, and a lyric I was sure was about “skin you’re in”, or was it “spin”? I resolved to google it when I got home — an always fatal mistake when it comes to disco songs with generic lyrics about love, dancing and heartbreak. And of course I had no luck with any permutation of the lyrics I thought I’d heard. BUT! That’s the point about my aforementioned zen DJ philosophy. I take immense pleasure from knowing I had an experience of pure joy hearing Tama Sumo play the tune in the moment, and I luxuriate in the possibility that I’ll see her out one day in the future, and maybe, just maybe, she’ll play it again.
(NB Kerstin if you ever read this please tell me what the song was thank you.)
Top 3: Tunes of the Kompakt revival (so far)
As you all know by now, Kompakt is definitely coming back in 2024, but here are three tunes that I’ve already been caning this year, as a taster for the wave that’s shortly arriving. They’re all from what I consider the label’s relatively uncool middle period, 2007–2008, when I was first discovering this kind of music more generally. One Sunday evening in April 2008, the night after seeing Prosumer and Maurice Fulton play for the first time, I went to see a Kompakt live showcase at the Indigo2 featuring Mouse On Mars, Burger/Voigt, Gui Boratto, Thomas Fehlmann and more. As I tend to go on about at every opportunity, that weekend was a life changing moment for me, and it feels good to bring some of the music of that era back today.
1) Justus Köhncke - ‘Parage’
This record sat on my shelves for years but only started getting regular use when I almost culled it during a clearout late last year. Relistening to ‘Parage’, I realised there might actually be something to it, so I rolled it out at new year, Love Muscle, Pbar and onwards. Then, just a few days ago, Chris Cruse opened his Boxing Day set at Pbar with it and it felt like an elegant close to the year.
2) Gui Boratto - ‘Terminal’
I’m sure some people will not be too thrilled to hear Gui Boratto is back in fashion, but tough titties, IT’S HAPPENING. I rolled this out in August in the sweaty Adonis warehouse and on the beach in Toronto. You might call this tune basic, overblown, manipulative — and you’d be right! That’s why I love it so much.
3) Justus Köhncke - ‘$26 (Aaron-Carl Mix)’
Oddly for an affirmed stan of both JK and AC, I didn’t hear this tune the first time round. But earlier this year, as I was idly discussing the nascent Kompakt revival that’s definitely happening with gay music friends (like canaries down the mine, the gays always know about these things before everyone else does), my friend Michael shared this unlikely slammer by Aaron-Carl and I knew I had to find the right moment to play it out. That moment presented itself at Sundaze in Brussels and it landed exactly as I hoped it would.
Top 3: Toughest gig experiences
I often have an urge to write about tough gigs afterwards as a form of bloodletting (or therapy if we’re being less dramatic about it). But I also almost always find myself somehow paralysed, unable to articulate my thoughts in a suitable manner. I’m not too precious about sharing my doubts about my own performance where this may have been found lacking. But I catch myself worrying about offending other people — the organisers of the party, or the people who attended, or anyone else who happens to read it. Indeed I have a handful of extended post mortems of this kind that I’ve never actually published. But I’m going to force myself here to name three gigs I found really challenging this year, and try and look at the silver linings, if I can.
1) Comporta
OK so this is a bit of a dodge already, because I never publicised this gig and told very few people about it at the time, so it’s not exactly exposing myself or the organisers to mention it here. But the only private gig I did this year (note: I tend to average only one of these per year anyway) was also by some distance the worst DJ experience. It was a memorial party for someone I don’t know who had died a year earlier, and the brief was to play ‘good music’ for five hours while friends and family of the departed gathered, ate and generally celebrated their memory. At least, that was the initial brief, and I made sure to double check I was trusted to make the call on what counted as ‘good music’. They assured me I was. But then, a couple of days before the event, the brief got updated to ‘good music that people recognise’, i.e. wedding-style music. Now I’m not averse to that at all, but most of my wedding-style music is on vinyl not digital, and I didn’t have time to rip stuff. That’s fine, I was told, there would be turntables.
So I packed a record bag, stuck what I could on my USB, hired a car and drove the two hours to the venue, arriving a good two hours before my set to make sure there was time to sound check and eat some lunch. On arrival, I found there were turntables as promised, but only one of them was working properly, and although the sound person who had been brought in to set everything up promised to fix it, they couldn’t and clocked off regardless. I was left with one turntable and two CDJs for my five hours of set. I was able to make the puzzle work for the first three hours or so, but as it got later and the (wealthy, entitled, emotional) attendees got drunker, it became increasingly apparent that they only wanted to hear tunes that they recognised for the rest of the night — and I had run out of options on my USB. I would play a New Order or Madonna record using the one working turntable and it would pop off, but then I’d have to play a (relatively) obscure tune off my USB — think the aforementioned ‘Happy House’, for example — before sticking on another hit on vinyl.
And they simply weren’t having it. One person demanded New Order, right after I’d played them. Another almost tipped their glass of wine over the CDJs. About four hours in, a trio of drunk women confronted me across the decks and outright insulted me to the point where I finally had to pull the ‘talk to the manager’ card. I kept going, reminding myself there was only an hour left. But then as that final hour drew to a close, it dawned on me that despite their visible dissatisfaction with what I was doing, no one there wanted the music to stop, least of all the person who’d booked me. When I finally told him I had to go so I could drive back to Lisbon, he gave me a helpless, pleading look as if to say “but what should I do with all these people?” I ended up playing an extra 45 minutes or so that saw me alternate between ever deeper cuts off my LP of Speaking In Tongues and whatever hits on my USB that I’d already played earlier in the evening. Someone asked for some reggaeton, as if the previous five hours of tunes had given any indication that I might have some on my person. I finally stopped the music, packed my stuff and left — no one said thank you, no one helped me carry my things back to the car. I drove the two hours back home, arriving after 1am, shattered.
Silver lining: It’s difficult to identify one, but I suppose I now know that if I ever agree to something like this again, I should ask for significantly more money and have a ‘wedding’ playlist primed and ready on Rekordbox.
2) Thessaloniki
By contrast, this gig was very well organised: logistics and transfers handled seamlessly, equipment working as planned, sound really on point. You’d expect that from an outdoor event that’s been held regularly over the summer in Thessaloniki and Athens for years. I have no complaints about the professional side of the operation. What I did have significant reservations about was the crowd, and the fact that they simply didn’t dance while I was playing. There must have been about 500 people in the street in front of me and out of that 500 I’d say an average of about 20 of them showed any signs of throwing shapes at any one time. I think it’s easier to play to an almost empty room than it is to so many non-dancing people, but I wonder if this is an experience you also just have to get used to as you play at more/bigger events, especially outdoors. (It can’t have helped that I’d barely slept since playing in London the night before, so I was probably more sensitive than usual to an apparently indifferent crowd.)
Afterwards, a Greek friend informed me that people not dancing was totally par for the course over there, so I shouldn’t take it personally. I couldn’t help but notice, though, that the DJ playing the closing hour got a lot more people moving than I had, albeit with a particularly accessible kind of music. (I was taken back to my existential crises at Horst Festival earlier in the year — and I’m sure there will be more such moments in 2024.) I was glad to leave and collapse into my airbnb bed for another too-short sleep before flying all the way back home to Lisbon, licking my wounds a little.
Silver lining: I played true to myself, despite feeling a bit like I was failing, and no one directly insulted me. Result.
3) Amsterdam
Many things conspired against us, collectively, for this gig, and having discussed my feedback at length with the promoters I’m not going to go through all of it again here. It was a series of unfortunate events that could have been dealt with differently, but we all managed to muddle through well enough and the crowd didn’t seem to really notice or mind. But I never want to find myself back in the position I was in at the start of my set here: confused about which room I was meant to play in, unsure what equipment was available, worried I wouldn’t have enough records to get through my set time, 100% frazzled.
Silver lining: Luckily I was playing on the lineup with a good friend, so we could share the stress and even play together for an hour or so at the end. That was our first ever B2B and made up for all the confusion.
Top 3: Classic US house tunes that soundtracked the year
There were three classic US house records that just kept popping up at the most joyful moments all year, creating a sort of ongoing theme that threaded through my 2023 partying experience.
1) Cajmere feat. Dajae - ‘Brighter Days (Underground Goodie Remix)’
In what I suspect might be the long tail of Kanye playing this tune off a keyboard at Coachella a few years ago (really), or maybe it was a collective honouring of its 30th anniversary, Cajmere’s remix of his own ‘Brighter Days’ feat. Dajae was probably my most heard record this year. EVERYONE was playing it — from Atonal to Campout to Planeta Manas to everywhere else. But did it get old? Of course not! Do cunty rhythm tracks get better than this? And what more concise message could we need as the world continues to spiral than: “Can you hear me?/Lift me up!/Brighter days!”
Top moment: Shanti Celeste playing this at Campout and as Dajae sang “lift me up”, Diamond lifted CCL, who had a sprained ankle, up high for an impromptu piggy back.
2) Planet Soul - ‘Set U Free (Fever Mix)’
When Prosumer played this at Else in September it was a really big moment, the bboy electro/acid cutting right through the smoother house he’d otherwise been playing. Although I recognised it I couldn’t remember what it was, but much like my Tama Sumo story above, I figured I’d just google the “step into my blast zone” lyrics when I got home. But I had no luck — it certainly wasn’t this! Then at the end of November, before I came on at Lux, Chima Isaaro stuck it on again. I almost asked what it was, but resisted, only commenting on it to her in passing. Finally, just a week or so later I was listening to the recording of Father Dukes’ set at Campout, which I’d missed live, and there it was again, just 20 minutes in. Finally, with the benefit of repeat home listens, I heard the lyrics properly — “come into my planet soul” — and the mystery was solved. Delayed gratification!
Top moment: The crowd at Else losing it to the slowdown section.
3) Angie Stone - ‘Wish I Didn’t Miss You (John Junior Remix)’
One of the most beautiful dancefloor moments I witnessed this year was Gayance playing Angie Stone at Your Love in Panoramabar back in June. As the opening strains of the record came in, it felt like all the Black dancers in the crowd exploded with collective joy, hugging each other and dancing and singing along with Angie. Then the same thing happened when Phlegm played it at Campout — though in fact Phlegm’s set felt like that Pbar moment extended over two whole hours: Black excellence on display in the Pennsylvanian woods. Finally, Chima Isaaro also played it early doors at her Club:CCC party at Planeta Manas in late October, and hearing it in this one-of-a-kind DIY club in Lisbon made me wonder at the work that these promoters and venue owners put in to create spaces where Black joy can be freely expressed.
Top moment: Singing along with Angie every time.
Top 3: Times I got rejected from clubs
1) Berghain/Panoramabar, 10 September
I wanted to see Jane Fitz play at Berghain on Sunday evening and, not having a guestlist spot, decided the best strategy would be to get up around 7am and go down there to try my chances with the morning queue. Friends were already inside and I was excited to join them, but sadly it wasn’t to be — the door person gave my head-to-toe Uniqlo outfit a quick once over and quickly showed me where to go. I had told myself it wasn’t the end of the world if I got rejected, but I can’t deny it hurt a little bit.
2) De School, 22 October
This one hurt a lot more. I had actually bought a ticket for this ADE weekender from a friend of a friend, wanting to finally visit this famous club before it shut its doors in the new year. But on the day of the party I suddenly realised that the barcode on the PDF ticket was blocked and would need to be re-generated by the person who’d bought it. It was too late to arrange this, so I made the journey to the club anyway to see if they could look the reference number up on the ticket list. After a reasonable wait, there came a very quick “no”. I was also not allowed in as a +1 for Dana who was on the guestlist, so we went for lunch and regrouped. Dana decided to go home, leaving me with her guestlist spot if I wanted to use it. Committed now, I went back to the club again, this time accompanied by another friend who was also on the guestlist. But the answer came again — “no” — only the named people were being let in on the list. I guess they just didn’t want me, and now sadly it seems I won’t make it to DS before it closes.
3) Panoramabar, 26 December
Back to Pbar again for Christmas, except this time I had a guestlist spot. It didn’t make much difference though as I arrived around 2.30am, by which time there wasn’t any queue at all. I approached the entrance, but before I could even say I was on the list the door person said “no”. Luckily they were charitable enough to listen as I explained I was actually on the list, and I got waved through. But I consider my 100% rejection record to be intact.
Top 3: Dancing moments
I thought this would be a tough one because I danced a LOT this year, but in the end these three peak dancing moments are pretty much burned into my memory, both visual and physical.
1) Dana Kuehr & Islas @ Sundaze, Brussels, 28 May
You’d have thought that after playing the night before in Bristol, only getting a couple of hours’ sleep en route to the afternoon party in Brussels, and then playing for three hours, I might be out of juice. But you’d be wrong. As per my report, Dana and Ailsa killed it so hard with their closing set on this Sunday evening that I and all the Brussels crew couldn’t help but dance our tatas off. And we even have the receipts — I’ve watched this clip a hundred times by now and it captures the vibe perfectly:
2) Waking Life, Crato, 7-11 June
OK, so I’m going to cheat for this one and name a whole festival rather than a specific moment. But that’s because, as I’ve already described, the dancing at Waking Life was so varied and satisfying and extensive. I did over 30 hours of it across 5 days. From pure afternoon vibes on the Beach during ADAB’s set, to the Forest exhilaration of Steffi on the Thursday night or Objekt on Saturday evening, getting down once again to Mala on the Beach on Friday night, the commitment of the long Sunday morning session in the Forest, or the extreme elation during the opening moments of DMX Krew on the Sunday night: damn, it was good.
3 ) Apeiron @ Atonal, Berlin, 7 September
A complete surprise to me, but as I wrote about here, this turned into an extended four-hour moment of shake-it-out catharsis to mark the end of my summer in Berlin.
Special mentions: Michael Upson @ Love Muscle (May), Chris Cruse @ Panoramabar (June), Lis Dalton @ Honcho Campout (August), Prosumer @ Dimensions (September), Honcho @ Planeta Manas (September), Kleo b2b Chris Cruse b2b Tama Sumo @ Panoramabar (December), Abena @ Gut Level (December)
Top 3: Afterparties
I’m not going to write about these in detail because what happens at the afterparty stays at the afterparty. (Actually that’s a complete lie, I’ve written about many an afterparty in the past.) But these three were the best of a whole load of good ones this year, with friends old and new.
1) Post-Welt Discos, Lisbon (my house), April
2) Post-Sundaze, Brussels, May
3) Post-Void, Philadelphia, August
Top 3: Sets I played
It’s weird looking back at a year of DJing, appraising what you did as an artist-performer-entertainer and deciding whether it was good or not. I played about 50 gigs this year, more than any year previously, and as I look back at most of them I can say that I did a reasonably good job. But there are always things to criticise or improve: perhaps the flow wasn’t quite right, or it took me too long to find it; maybe I misread the crowd’s mood, or wilfully ignored it; or I opted for the easy choices rather than challenging myself and the dancers.
I think three sets stand out for being ones where I really contributed to something high quality, artistic and even unique, on my own terms. It’s hardly a surprise that two of them are from my own label parties: these are nights when I feel most free to set the agenda and represent myself to the fullest.
1) Welt Discos, Lisbon, April (recording)
Warming up the first ever Welt Discos party was probably my proudest moment of 2023, even though it was only witnessed by about 30 people. Alongside my RA podcast, it is the best representation of where my head and heart have been, musically, over the past couple of years.
2) Welt Discos, Berlin, July (partial recording)
My closing set at the Welt Discos night at Renate was very different, but that’s why I’m also so proud of it. I got to pick up during peak time and then stretch out into the late morning hours, slowing down and going deeper. The final hour or so, which weren’t captured on the recording because I accidentally unplugged the Tascam, were me at my happiest playing. It was also super vindicating for me, because often when I’m closing parties I’m doing it contexts where there isn’t much of a crowd. On this night, I got to do it to a proper group of dancers that included some of my closest friends, and I loved it.
3) b2b Gwenan, VE, Brussels, November (report)
Finally, this B2B with Gwenan in Brussels felt like the culmination of a longer-term process I’ve been going through this year, rediscovering my record collection and re-vibing with G musically, via the medium through which we originally learnt to DJ. I still feel conflicted about my relationship to digital and vinyl, and to new and old music. But when it works, it works, and during this set it felt like any of those doubts simply disappeared.
That’s it! I wish everyone a happy new year and hope to see you in 2024.