2025: sets of the year

This was … a very difficult filter. Let’s pretend that I just ran out of room to write, as we transition from the “bests” into the “honorable mentions”. An amazing year for DJs and DJ culture.

NAP – liquidtime 13 – Lava Mistica

I am trying to remember how I started listing to this one — maybe it was after seeing CCL set, maybe it was some other reference, but this NAP set basically had me saying either “what is going on” or “oh, this is a great record”, for the entire time.

CCL – liquidtime 14 – Sea Of Clouds

… and this one might be even better?!? I need to go over the entire liquidtime archive next year; this set got me through some bad days and made some good days even better.

upsammy – RA 970

More out-there bass, post-drum-and-bass, weight — I’d almost call it weightless, really, if the speakers were not shaking. This one also made a great “home listening experience”, credit to the DJ for getting the levels right.

DJ Voices – Sidestep Lifestyle

Voices plays for Andrew Weatherall — enough said.

Lukas Wigflex – RA 969

I thought I had this pinned down as an electro set — and then the techno shows up, and then then battletech showed up, and the bass got weirder, and parts of the electro came back … and, yeah, a really great thing from our man in Nottingham.

DJ Alfredo – Live at Amnesia 1989 (Part One)

What we talk about when we talk about Balaeric — goes from an edit of Strings Of Life to some chunky thing with a mumbled vocal talking about “feel the music in your butt / get upp”. As all of techno gets older and we appreciate the grand gesture and the archive more and more, we, thankfully have things like this to remind us to get the butts moving.

Honors and honorables out to, what a great year:

• Moopie b2b Lena Wilikens @ Lot Radio, don’t tell me that “selectors” are over.
• Ron Trent – RA 996, perfect, lush house music.
• Optimo – 15 Years of Mr. Saturday Night — Optimo, JD, we hardly knew ye, we’ll miss you very much.
• 1morning & Regal86 – RA999, hardgrooooooove.
• Ben UFO – Live @ Sustain Release, 2025, masterful tings.
• Mulatu Astatke – NTS, 2025-09-28, East African jazz and dust
• Justin Carter – How I Build A Floor (Live at Mister Sunday, July 20, 2025), I was there for this one, it was as deep as you want.
• Scott Zacharias – No Way Back 2025, also as deep as you like.
• Peverelist b2b Pinch – Live @ Draaimolen Festival 2025, heavy, rather than deep, but great to see the ‘Ps’ rolling like this.
• Holden & Zimpel – Live at Mutek 2025 — see Albums, but really, deeply wonderful.

BUT

WAIT, HOLD IT

SPECIAL AWARD — RESIDENT ADVISOR

If you’re my age, you probably remember a time in maybe the early 2000s when residentavisor.net and progressive-sounds.com were the places on the internet to read about, well, progressive house and trance — I’m digging through their archives, and RA appears to have as their earliest thing 2001 Danny Howells review, and PS claims to have been running since 1999.

I don’t want to dunk on either of them for their past selves, as I also once overused the word “whilst”; rather I want to shower endless praise on RA for their transformation and ability to change over time. As of this year, it is now cool to say “we had a minimal techno podcast in 2005”, but there was a real chance that RA never made it out of the local minimum (see what I did there?) of prog turned into electrohouse turned into minimal, and that they disintegrated or failed or sold out like so many other internet cultural properties.

It’s easy to say “well, someone else would have done it” — what we’ve seen in the arts is that often no one else does it. Huge credit and huge thanks to everyone; it is a hell of an achievement.

And, I said last year, “What will they do for RA 1000?” — and they nailed it. They’re all great, but I’ll reference you to the Mark Ernestus one.