Mix 28: June 2023

The opening salvo is extraordinary: Skrillex, Fred again.. & Flowdan's "Rumble" at 0:00, Fred again..'s "Danielle (smile on my face)" at 0:15, Skrillex & Bobby Raps' "Leave Me Like This" at 0:30 — three tracks in thirty seconds, the Fred again.. and Skrillex axis dominating the first minute with kinetic energy that the rest of the mix will spend its runtime gradually releasing. After the contemplative meditation of Mix 25, this is a cold shower. Don Diablo's "Golden" at 1:00, MEDUZA's "Friends" at 4:45, and the pace doesn't relent.

John Summit's "Make Me Feel" at 10:45 and Mau P's "Your Mind Is Dirty" at 11:00 confirm the tech-house direction in quick succession. Gigi D'Agostino's "Bla Bla Bla" returns at 14:00 — always deployed as pure communal energy, a melody so embedded in European dance culture it functions as an anthem without needing a single word. Taylor Swift's "Love Story" appears in three versions between 17:00 and 18:00 — the Digital Dog Remix, its radio edit, and a BlackC4t rework. Three readings of a pop-country crossover from 2008, compressed into ninety seconds of a 2023 house mix. It's the most audacious pop inclusion since the early archive, and it works because the energy is so high by this point that the dancefloor devours everything without blinking.

Paperclip People's "Throw" in Slam's RTM Remix arrives immediately after the Taylor Swift sequence at 19:00 — its fifth archive appearance, and the tonal shift from pop sweetness to Detroit techno aggression is almost comical in its boldness. The DJ leans into the contrast. The mix's short runtime means there's no room for gentle transitions; the listener gets whiplash, and that's the point. CHVRCHES' "Such Great Heights" at 31:30, a soundtrack commission, and a calm-hour interlude from Pascal Michael Stiefel at 30:15 provide the only moments of respite in the entire session.

Duke Dumont's "The Chant" appears twice — at 42:00 and 45:00 — in the same double-play technique the archive has perfected over twenty-eight chapters. Dombresky's "Dirty Secret" at 37:30 and KREAM's "Sweat" at 38:00 sustain the tech-house pressure through the closing third. Sébastien Léger's "Hutchula" at 49:00 provides a brief deep-house exhale — one of the archive's most respected producers, his groove offering momentary calm before the final gesture.

Miley Cyrus's "Flowers" closes at 54:30. The biggest pop song of 2023, played as the last thing the listener hears. After fifty-seven minutes of driving house, tech-house, and techno, the DJ ends with Miley — the same instinct that closed Mix 25 with Donna Lewis, the willingness to end with pure pop, no armour, no ironic distance. When you're confident in who you are, you can close however you want. And right now, confidence is the one thing this DJ has in abundance.

The BPM holds at 129.2 — the faster tempo that first appeared in Mix 23 and is rapidly becoming the new standard. Combined with the front-loaded energy, it creates a mix that feels like it's racing toward something. What that something turns out to be is a period of quiet that nobody — least of all the DJ — saw coming.