Tracklist
Liner Notes
Fred again.. opens the mix for the first time — "Billie (Loving Arms)" at 0:00, sample-heavy and emotionally immediate, a stranger's voice looped into something warm and close. He returns at 11:45 with "Hannah (The Sun)" and again at 31:45 with "Faisal (Envelops Me)." Three Fred again.. tracks in the first half hour. He's become the definitive voice of this era, and Mix 16 places him at the top of the running order to set the tone: this session is going to be about feeling, not function. About warmth, not walls.
RÜFÜS DU SOL appear four times: "Next to Me" in the Adana Twins' remix at 26:45, the original at 31:30, "Make It Happen" at 38:15, and "Devotion" at 1:12:30. All from their Surrender album cycle, and the track titles tell their own story — next to me, make it happen, devotion. It's the most concentrated RÜFÜS DU SOL presence since Mix 01, and the emotional register has shifted entirely. The exploratory yearning of "Innerbloom" and "Underwater" has given way to something more direct, more intimate. The band has grown alongside the DJ, both finding a quieter kind of confidence.
M83's "Midnight City" in Eric Prydz's legendary private remix at 33:45 fuses French synth-pop and Swedish progressive house into something transcendent — one of those bootleg remixes that circulates through the underground because it's too good to stay hidden. Womack & Womack's "Teardrops" at 6:30, a late-'80s R&B classic, sits comfortably next to Chris Lorenzo's "California Dreamin'" at 9:30, establishing early that this mix will cross boundaries with the ease of someone who simply doesn't see them.
The middle section takes an extraordinary turn. Idris Muhammad's "Could Heaven Ever Be Like This" at 42:15 — a 1977 jazz-funk track, all warm Rhodes piano and floating vocal — leads into Kelly Price's "Friend of Mine" at 45:15 and then Kool & The Gang's "Celebration" at 51:45. The mix has crossed a boundary most DJ mixes never approach: from contemporary electronic music into classic R&B, soul, and disco. The transition isn't jarring because the mix has been gently loosening its grip on genre since the Fred again.. opening. By the time Kool & The Gang arrive, the dancefloor has become a living room, and the DJ is simply playing songs for friends.
The second half becomes a jukebox of rock and pop classics that would be unthinkable in most dance music contexts. Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" at 1:19:45. Cold Chisel's "Forever Now" at 1:23:15 — an Australian rock anthem with a specific emotional weight for anyone who grew up with it. Dire Straits' "Money For Nothing" at 1:27:30. Then The Killers' "Mr. Brightside" in three versions spanning from Jacques Lu Cont's Thin White Duke Dub at 1:32:45 to the original at 1:38:15. Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell's "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" at 1:38:30, played twice through The Reflex's edit. Donna Summer's "Bad Girls" at 1:47:45. CCR's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" at 1:56:15. Michael Jackson's "Thriller" at 2:00:15.
It's audacious. A DJ mix that dedicates its entire second half to beloved songs from outside the dance music canon, played straight, without apology or irony. This isn't the naivety of Mix 01's pop crossovers — it's a deliberate choice made by someone who has spent sixteen chapters establishing their credibility in deep house, techno, and melodic electronic music. They've earned the right to play Pink Floyd. They've earned the right to play Michael Jackson. The second half says: I contain multitudes, and here they all are.
Gigi D'Agostino's "Elisir" at 17:00 nods to the Italo tradition with sentimental warmth. Au/Ra & CamelPhat's "Panic Room" at 23:00 brings a darker, club-ready energy to the first half's emotional landscape. Sash!'s "Mysterious Times" at 15:15 reaches back to the '90s Eurodance that was many people's first encounter with electronic music — a nostalgia within a nostalgia, layered deep.
Claude VonStroke's "Who's Afraid of Detroit?" closes at 2:07:15 — a ten-year-anniversary mix of a dirtybird records classic. The title is a question, and in the context of a mix that has journeyed from Fred again.. through Pink Floyd to Michael Jackson and back, the answer is implicit: not this DJ. Not afraid of Detroit, or Chicago, or London, or Sydney, or any of the cities whose music these mixes draw from. Mix 16 is the archive at its most fearless and most tender — a year-end session that says, these are all the songs I love, and here they all are, in the order I feel them, for you.