Wild City

Aalhad Joshi aka Marbman makes a case for taking dance music to the energy of its early roots when the genre wasn’t replete with as much explicit seriousness, but he does so with modern selections on his Wild City mix. Holding onto a penchant of fun-filled vocal refrains – as he does on his productions, the most recent of which ‘Class’ released on the Portuguese label No, She Doesn’t – the Mumbai-based producer ties together works of the likes of Four Tet, Cignol, Ilana Byrne, L Major and Admo, dipping in and out of a house-based selection to stay rhythmically dynamic. A third way in, Joshi drops the vocal refrains in favour of more atmospheric numbers, immersing the listener in distant textures while the pulsating drums keep intimate company before returning into the mix’s formative mood with DJ Gigolo and Kev Koko’s trance/electro number ‘Papi’ – all the while maintaining a leisurely mood without relenting the tempo or intensity. For more information: https://www.thewildcity.com/mixes/18278-wild-city-202

Among the many styles of DJs, some selectors rely on the quality of their selections to create the mood while others make the case of how mixing equates with performances by “traditional” instrumentalists – where entire sets come together cohesively akin to a single song, constructed with a zoomed-out vision by meticulously combining isolated, sometimes morphed, phrases and sections like individual musical notes. Anhad Khanna makes a similar case with his Wild City mix as his new moniker Sublime Sound, which he debuted recently with the EP ‘Final Call’. Take for instance, how a repeated phrase from Boyard’s ‘Interstellar Express’ merely interludes the transition from Wayward’s ‘Back To The Old Days’ and Baby Rollen’s ‘Swimming with Dolphins’, never fully coming through itself but only adding as a part of the sum to create an entirely new composition which utilises the three tracks. Khanna doesn’t just stitch together selections but creates a performance out of his mix, sometimes using the squelching arpeggi

As we reached the milestone of hosting our 200th mix, few artists felt as befitting as Discostan. The outfit started as a personal endeavour of Hyderabad-born and Los Angeles-based Arshia Haq, who was inspired by her own decentralised idea of a “homeland” as a modern-day immigrant in a globalised world, to carve a unique space on the dancefloor for a consolidated decolonised musical identity of South Asian, West Asia and North Africa uniting it with all its shared sense of heritage, trauma, struggle and achievement. Transforming soon into a collective and later also into a label, with Jeremy Loudenback joining Haq at the helm, Discostan turned into a space for community-building among the brown diaspora and a go-to for radio shows and platforms to highlight and discover the canon of disco often overlooked by western lenses. Imagining the “past, present, and future soundtracks from Beirut to Bangkok via Bombay” the collective and label offers a counter approach to the colonial-mindset curation that birthed

Few individuals can be ascribed the descriptor “musical polymath” as justifiably as Natasha Noorani. A singer-songwriter, playback singer, producer, voiceover artist and ethnomusicologist, the Lahore-born artist felt perfect for our 199th mix when we found ourselves enjoying her collaborative NTS Mix with Discostaan where she displayed her musicality as ‘Peshkash’, her project through which she is highlighting and archiving sound art and oral narratives of 20th century Pakistan.  However, it is the country’s indie scene which Natasha is synonymous with – fully ingrained in its legacy as the co-founder of Lahore Music Meet, the annual event which not only saves space for Pakistan’s alternative music but has a reputation for bringing to limelight some of its budding members. Natasha carries the same approach to her Wild City mix, highlighting the canon of the country’s predominantly-independent music.  Latching herself to that theme, she gives regard to the style of her selections only in the aspect of making

Over his 5 years in Bath, primarily as a student, Saumya Masrani, who chose his last name as his moniker, involved himself in his immediate British electronic music scene, becoming the resident DJ for local promoters Origin Sounds. Subsequently, the Mumbai-born UK-based talent found the opportunity to open for the likes of Scuba, Or:la and DJ Stingray as JUKEBOXX, and later followed the trail to his hometown with support slots for Cinnaman and Lilly Palmer. All the nights of partying seeped into his work as a DJ and earlier this year he showcased the same as a producer with the release of his dark dance track ‘Growling Hunter’. Bringing the same musical knowledge rooted in the British-scene to his Wild City mix, Masrani starts at the disjointed fringes of house and techno and quickly edges into leftfield bass and jungle. There is a pre-headline slot sensibility to the selections which balance atmosphere, with the likes of rRoxymore and Kosh, against energy, through numbers by Cain and Bolam. The presence o

Punjab and Manipur-origin North Londoner Nayana IZ’s (pronounced “eyes”, after her first name which means in eyes in Hindi) trajectory as a solo artist has been nothing short of meteoric. Releasing her debut single ‘how we do’ just at the turn of the year, the rapper, model and multi-instrumentalist dropped a steady drip of singles running up to her EP ‘Smoke & Fly’ and has already found her verses resounded within campaigns for Adidas and soundtrack for FIFA 2021. The driving force behind it all has been the one fresh unique spice that she adds to her deep-seated love for hip-hop. Take for instance, the off-kilter psychedelic breakdown that punctuates the spitfire verses of ‘how we do’ or her Wild City mix which traces a wide variety of modern hip-hop before diverging into its offshoot dance styles and then bringing it back. Brushing by Nigerian artist Odunsi’s track ‘Body Count’, Nayana explores the sonics of the likes of Freddie Gibbs and Lupe Fiasco before bringing the mix to her current base, throwin

There’s a lot of emotive ground and dynamic range one can cover behind the four-on-the-floor beat of techno. From the more spatial inward journeys of minimal techno born out of YMCAs and church halls of Detroit, to its more hedonistic raw takes morphed within the gigantic confines of warehouses and derelict industrial buildings in Europe – these are merely two distinct points in a multi-dimensional genre. Shaun Moses finds his footing in the latter, gripping on to the visceral nature of it even further with his new stripped-down moniker Moses, the debut EP of which, entitled ‘The End Of The Tunnel’, he dropped last month. The Goa-based DJ and producer uses the EP closer to set the tone for his Wild City mix, which largely forgoes any dynamism of drops and breaks for some high-octane relentless listening. The contrast instead comes from how that sedulous energy is delivered, as Moses transfers it from the rhythmic pageant of Stef Mendesides’ ‘The Secret Agent’s Blunder’ to the ethereal futuristic pads of V

There is no shortage of producers flipping Bollywood-samples, though a good few of them treat the practice as a gimmick or novelty. Anthony Daniel aka November Rose on the other hand does it out of pure and sincere love for the fun and unique flavour in classic Bollywood soundtracks. It is that fun-factor which the Atlanta-based DJ and producer captures on his Wild City mix.  Born in Pontiac, Michigan and raised in metro-Detroit, Daniel grew up around the region’s vibrant dance culture, social movements and immigrant communities, developing a special love for funk. Following those strands, Daniel started exploring the musical elements from diaspora of colour in his work, tracing a natural cohesion shared among ethinc groups till he earned himself the label “cultural electronic music producer”. Highlighting the same, November Rose connects the funk beats of Doctor Dru and the four-on-the-floor works from the likes of Detroit Swindle and Leatherette, to the afro house tracks by Black Motion and Juls & Sango an

Not a lot of mixes can leave a lump in your throat – less so, within a minute of them. Enter Derain’s mix for Wild City, which picks at fresh wounds of our collective consciousness with the opening echoes of Aamir Aziz’s poem ‘Sab Yaad Rakha Jayega’. The quintessential verses gained their importance through the poignancy with which they encapsulate all the emotions and tragedies surrounding protests against the discriminatory Citizen Amendment Act and the unjust retaliation they received which shook the nation at the start of the year. Derain adds just enough spacious harmony to augment that poignancy and remind us with great impact that justice is still missing and the perpetrators of injustice are yet to answer for their actions. How then would you follow an opening like this with music? Fortunately, Derain’s own music carries just enough ambient chaos to respectfully carry Aziz’s anguish forward, disintegrating the verses into their abstract emotions and mood which he then connects all the way to New Zea

With his formative experience as a session bass player, Mumbai-based Nathan Thomas has shown a great understanding of the pocket of a beat even in his electronic productions as NATE08 – offering the leisurely draw of Dilla beats in his lo-fi hip-hop and RnB-rooted works. On his Wild City mix however, the young talent donns an entirely different oomph altogether, laying down the soundtrack for a beer-garden summer weekend with disco-rooted modern retro, jazz and afro house numbers. NATE08’s penchant for rich rhythms doesn’t escape him. Anchored almost entirely with a four-on-the-floor kick, the mix lays over it a rich parade of claves and syncopations. Further decorated by adventurous horn lines and organ solos, the mix serves as a time capsule, connecting the listener to the roots of funk and disco as effectively any classic hits in the genre would. For tracklist and more information: http://www.thewildcity.com/mixes/17614-wild-city-193-nate08

Anyone who has caught the enigmatic Babloo Babylon live has beared witness to the anonymous producer and DJ’s knack for interspersing film dialogues between climatic oomph of Bollywood edits in his DJ sets to bring the spirit of 70s and 80s’ noirs to the dancefloor. Behind the decks, Babloo is a storyteller with a unique voice, which compensates for his hidden identity. Recognising and utilising the difference in context between mixing for a live event and curating a mix for an online platform like ours, Babloo changes his approach on his Wild City mix to get more candid and just share a playlist of film classics he loves. The penchant for scrupulous structuring doesn’t entirely escape him though. Borrowing segments of varying length from the works of the likes of Usha Uthup, Asha Bhosle, Ilayaraja, RD Burman and Bappi Lahiri, Babloo’s mix is a demonstration of the colourfulness of Indian film music and an exercise in revamping the flow of its titles. For instance, the spoken word intro of Bappi Lahiri, Vij

After years of collaborative output with Vir RC as part of the burgeoning electronic duo Vridian, Siddhant Jain ventured out last year into his solo project ELM – naming the act after the gigantic elm trees that once served to offer respite to the travellers. Taking a cue from the tree’s property to provide comforting shade against light, the New Delhi-based producer and DJ related it to the properties of his own music. There is darkness to ELM’s sound, but instead of being jarring or brooding, he offers an element of relaxation through the textures he creates on his tracks – which have been released The qualities carry over to his Wild City mix. While beckoning the listener to the dancefloor with primarily melodic house selections, ELM keeps the steady rhythms surrounded by a spaciousness, never overbearing the senses but allowing for an energy-pumping passive consumption. Directing the sonic journey with intent, ELM does dial up the intensity with Hunter/Game’s ‘Dial’ and Agents of Time’s ‘Polina’ once the

Oslo-born, London-bred and inheriting a connection to Delhi, SUCHI has kept her finger on the pulse of global electronic music, perched as a seasoned radio host to notice the slightest of musical movements across continents – evident from the natural flair with which she incorporates in mix #190. Tracks like American producer Fleksor’s ‘Squaggle’ and Indian analog synth specialist Monophonik’s ‘Are You Free?’ (from the compilation ‘Undying of the Light’), find their way into the mix which comes as an invitation to gradually and progressively lose your inhibitions as you listen. The sonic trip reaches its peak with the adrenaline-fuelled, peppy, sensory track that is Roman Flügel’s ‘Garden Party’. Befitting the occasion that it’s the last mix of our March-long campaign for highlighting woman from across the music industry, SUCHI culminates her selections with British electronic duo Orbital’s reimagining of the theme tune for the popular TV series ‘Doctor Who’, originally realised by pioneering composer and

No one can accuse Radha Priya aka Noni-mouse of being obvious. She has a penchant for being quirky, inadvertently ridiculing the listener’s expectations like a musical dadaist through off-kilter music videos, volatile EPs and light-hearted sporadic SoundCloud uploads, which have constituted her steady but stark progression over the last year. Radha Priya just might be having fun but she has developed a sound, the core influences of which are hard to pin down. You can distinguish traces of every effervescent style under the electronic music umbrella, like disco, ambient, hip-hop, indietronica, vaporwave and downtempo, but the vibrant concoction of genres acquire an outworldly colour in the hands of Noni-mouse which is uniquely hers. For her Wild City mix, the Mumbai-based producer collates a set of her musical musings that fell through the cracks of her discography, selecting outtakes and unreleased snippets from her live sets. Continuing to defy expectations (including ours), Noni-mouse kicks off with dark

Every year, March 8 is commemorated as International Women's Day, a day dedicated to celebrating women around the world and their achievements. Since we don't think a single day in the year is nearly enough to celebrate the women around us, we're going to be dedicating the entire month of March to the immensely talented women in our music community and to spreading awareness about female representation and inclusivity in the music industry, through a series of mixes, features and conversations. We're kicking off this endeavour by a mix compiled by San Francisco-based, Indian-origin producer, Hindustani classical singer and modular synthesist Arushi Jain aka Ose that sheds the light on experimental sound synthesis by some pioneering female-identifying artists. With this mix, Ose hopes to give listeners some insight into her world, and the artists and music that inspire her. With modular analog synthesisers as her weapon of choice, and ambient music her forté, it's no surprise that most of the selections on

New Delhi’s Nishant Mittal is a man of many hats: a sound artist working under the moniker PILLS, a vintage enthusiast and an ardent purveyor of India’s overlooked musical heritage in styles like psychedelia, funk, rock n’ roll and disco, which he is known to showcase through his role as a selector, radio host and vinyl-digging patron under the alias “Digging In India”. His love for the old and the undercuts defines his Wild City mix, which arrives wrapped up in all its vintage glory, cutting through with the characteristic distortion of old records and tied together with a theme of thrill and rousing villainy handpicked from 70s and 80s’ Indian cinema. Even within this singular mix, Mittal demonstrates the range Bollywood soundtracks covered, showcasing compositions that were a melting pot of driving guitar riffs, blaring big bands, sweeping string orchestras, latin percussion, Mariachi-style stand-offs and spaghetti-western themes – all approached with the very Indian outlook. The selection doesn’t solel

Lacuna's collage of tracks, on our latest mix, throws unexpected benders at listeners, while maintaining a certain ambience; and it offers up some seriously underrated, lesser heard gems, but interspersed with tracks from veterans like Flying Lotus, Herbie Hancock, Mr Carmack or Dorian Concept. And that's what's so remarkable about the mix – it doesn't cater to any preconceived notions or parameters for a set and emerges, instead, as a homage to experimental hip-hop and beats from the past decade. Traversing alternative hip-hop, beats and bass music, arranged in the largely fractal, unconventional manner, the mix is not exactly designed for a switch-off-your-brain sort of dancefloor experience. Instead, from the dreamy, tribal build up shaped by Kutmah, to the halfway diversion into halftime bass, we can sense Lacuna earnestly urging his listeners to pay attention to the track selections, and to learn and consume this glimpse he offers into the swirling, glitching and raging world of contemporary beatmakers.

The first lady of Miami bass is an anglophile and resides in New York. As paradoxical as that statement may sound, it holds entirely true for Jess Gentile aka Jubilee. The Miami-born artist scaled parties all along the coast of Florida before she took the region’s sound with her to New York. By the turn of the noughties, Jubilee was running labels and parties in the vibrant scene of her newly adopted home, releasing and performing as a member of Dre Skull’s Brooklyn-based collective Mixpak, and establishing her reputation as the “first lady of Miami bass”. All the while, the DJ and producer peppered everything she did with her unabashed enthusiasm for UK music, seamlessly melding d’n’b, grime and dancehall with Miami bass, breaks and even a little bit of house. Jubilee can take influences from three different parts of the world and flourish the sounds of each effortlessly even within the span of 32-minutes – as she does for her Wild City mix. With a tracklist containing works from the likes of AceMo, DJ T

Destiny’s Child, Beyoncé, Lauryn Hill, Missy Elliott, Aaliyah – these are just some of the artists that feature on DJ Ishani’s mix for Wild City. In case it isn’t obvious already, Ishani’s mix is an ode to the girl-power that has dominated hip-hop and R&B charts, with an admitted bias towards the past, making it aptly suited for nostalgic high-school throwbacks.  The Mumbai-based DJ curated this compilation with the purpose of educating listeners about the abundance of talent contributed by female MCs to the genre. Generously peppered with names from pop music, the mix packs an inviting oomph and rousing energy. Moreover, Ishani elevates the zeal and energy of the set through old school mixing, one of the styles  she has cultivated through nightclub residencies across the country. The parade of female figures seem to respond to each other’s energy, with each track intently taking over the charge from its predecessor, making it seem almost like a 35-minute-long showcase by a star-studded ensemble. For more

Wild City's latest mix comes to us courtesy Mumbai-based producer and @jwalaco co-founder Palash Kothari, also known by his moniker Hedrun. We're not quite sure where @Hedrun's set belongs. This set could be suited to: a community centre in Dombivali, the tent of a hippie discovering the wonders of Indian yoga and meditation (and drugs) in the 80s, at a kitschy post-modern party at a hipster apartment in South Delhi, in the record collection of a seasoned crate digger who frequents New Gramophone House on pay days, at none of these places, or all. If that didn't give you a hint of exactly what Hedrun's mix sounds like, perhaps the track selection will. Featuring tracks by a range of artists such as Baluchi Ensemble of Karachi, Ananda Shankar, Lalita Bai, Birhi Bai, Don Cherry and Bernard Bonnier, and spanning genres such as Rajasthani folk, world fusion, East African folk and jazz, calling this mix a whirlwind would be an understatement. Hedrun was gracious enough to break down his track list for us and hi