Many thanks for your enduring support through 2018. We’ve had many more amazing contributions to our mix series, and conducted insightful interviews in what has been a very action-packed year for us at Mantissa. We also hosted some of our favourite DJs at several venues across London including, Horse & Groom, The White Hart, and our favourite little basement, BAR-A-BAR. Thanks to:
Aurora, Peach, Laksa, DJ Soda-Stream, MDJ, Christian Eede, re:ni, Come Up Records, and Bake.
All played brilliant sets and made the effort worthwhile. We will be returning with our events in 2019 and will be sure to keep you in the loop!
And finally last but not least, a special thanks goes to our artist, Mel who put together all of the cool and quirky artwork for our events, blog and mix series over the past year.
Here are some of our best bits:
- An Interview: Darwin
- A Review: Farr Festival 2018
- Tune of the Week: Jon Hopkins
- An Interview: Unbound
- Selections: DJ Soda-Stream
Jambo’s Event of the Year – Make Me @ Nachtdigital Flex
It was a festival rather than club night that takes my prize as event of 2018. Prior to attending Nachtdigital in August, I watched the documentary Escape To Olganitz and read interviews from the likes of Jan Bennemann, one of the festival’s organisers. One quote stated that “We put everything we have into Nachti, please come and see it for yourself!”, and after attending the Flex edition I can confirm this statement to be true in many ways.
The biggest highlight, among a festival filled to the brim with them was the Make Me crew’s sunrise set from 5am to 9am at the Beach Stage. This set was the climax of an evening that included a typically exuberant Optimo set in the sweltering Tent Stage, and an ambient set from Ben UFO and Nina at the Ambient Tent. It is a set filled with techno rollers, Italo, acid house and plenty else, perfect for those “afterparty” hours as the sun came up as ravers danced in the sand and (or) performed water aerobics in the lake as the music carried their heavy legs.
Looking back at those 48 hours in August, I feel assured in saying that surely the festival experience does not get much better than Nachti…So bring on Nachtdigital Mint!
Check out the recording of the set below:
Tom’s Mix Highlight – Zobol – Dark Science Electro Guest Mix
There has been a huge amount of incredibly high-quality mixes to come out this year and so picking one particular highlight has been tough.
Through the depths of all this quality, Bristol based Jon Chmielewski, aka Zobol, put together an amazing mix a few months ago as part of the Dark Science Electro Presents series (I believe created by Colorado based produce/DJ DVS NME).
It is just over an hour of pure blissful mixing; as Zobol educates you with some of his extensive electro collection. The fluidity with which the mix flows, with ever changing synth lines ebbing and flowing hypnotically around the breaky beats has made it a mix I have repeatedly come back to; and show that Zobol is one to watch for 2019 again!
(He had an incredibly 2018 with some fantastic releases which deserve to be shouted out about too – such as his latest album Underground Network).
Jambo’s Mix Highlight – PPGMIX036 | Skins
Skins has enjoyed a breakthrough year in 2018. Firstly, as a producer through releases on his very own SKINS label, and secondly as a DJ, with an appearance on Alex T’s Rinse FM radio show, and his standout addition to the PPG Mix Series being just two examples of this.
In an age where there are countless polished and studio produced podcast released on a daily basis by the biggest DJs on the circuit, it is refreshing to listen to a mix as raw, fun and unpretentious as this. You are as likely to hear classics such as Function – Descending blended out of a lesser known gem, RSCH 14 – Gematria, as you are Wiley – Morgue into a techno 4×4 roller, CNCPT – Foreign Drum Sequence 1. Not to mention a ‘who knew that would work’ moment with Pangaea – Hex into Head High – Power Seat.
No description of the mix could do it more justice than the one given to it by Skins himself, “80 minutes of bosh”. Listen to the mix below:
Tom’s Event Highlight – Unbound Events x Killekill: Killekill 10 Year Anniversary – The Cause, London
Again 2018 seemed to be incredible for the sheer quantity of quality nights in London, let alone elsewhere. From seeing the likes Mumdance, Lena Willikens and Elena Columbi at Origins at Hackney Wick, and seeing the Coop Audio collective go from strength to strength it grows has been fantastic (I’ve been sad to have to keep making the tough choices of which night to go to and when, and try and ensure my body can keep up with me!).
One particular highlight from this year’s events comes from Charles Olisanekwu AKA DJ Winggold’s first Unbound event I visited this year – Unbound Events x Killekill: Killekill 10 year Anniversary. This was a night I had previously seen rising from afar but had never been to one, and nearly couldn’t make it. But I am extremely happy I managed to make it down – Charles has done a fantastic job in securing The Cause as a location for Unbound; it fits perfectly with the rhetoric of Unbound and every DJ I saw there played an amazing set – showing the curation skills Charles has under his belt.
I would recommend anyone else to check out what Unbound have instore for next year!
Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/130125344519864/
Unbound: https://www.facebook.com/weareunbound/
To all our readers, we could not have done it without you so thank you very much. There’s plenty more to come in 2019!