OLY Mix For The Astral Plane

Photo by Manuel Uthoff

Mexico City has functioned as an incubator for some of the most exciting threads in contemporary dance music, home to a number of labels and crews pushing against Western/Anglo hegemony and looking to create a stable, self-contained musical ecology. There are a few obvious touchstones in the DF’s sonic culture, but there are also artists who flit between scenes and avoid categorization, welding on new components until a brilliant new whole emerges. OLY has stood out as one of the city’s most talented producers and DJs for several years now, releasing a sparse stream of perplexingly vital singles and becoming an absolutely stand out peak time DJ in the meantime.

OLY productions tend towards minimalism and a slinky sense of fun, wringing kinetic energy out of rhythms laid bare. 2015’s Náyade EP was our first taste, two rich, low end heavy efforts as situated in the beat scene as they are in DJ-driven dance music, but possessing an inescapable groove nonetheless. Singles and compilation tracks for <//-(HYPERSONICS)-//>, Cintas Coagula, Classical Trax, COCOBASS and NAAFI have followed, exploring everything from acid-tinged industrial to placid ambient and on to a full bodied funk carioca take. A distinct rave aesthetic is present on most OLY club tracks, although they rarely reach the full rev of a straightforward peak time banger, instead teasing out their intent (or not) over the entire run time.

OLY’s mix work is where the embrace of club music at its most full throttle enters, showing off her keen sense of which rhythmic concoctions will most efficiently set the floor off. Various strains of hardcore, both classic and modern, juke, bubbling, soca and more tend to pop up in OLY mixes, all mixed with a deft touch to avoid the obnoxiously jarring hybridities that many DJs fall for. Her Astral Plane Mix takes a particularly rave-y track, matching a range of left field techno and trance with a smattering of juke killers and some choice bootlegs. In typical fashion, the reference points are kaleidoscopic, but they’re all there, subsumed in OLY’s own production work and despite the lack of original tracks in the mix, it’s still a work distinctly her own. Download Astral Plane Mix 183 here and hit the jump for the full track list.

Dance Lil Homie – ???
Crimen (No Boy Edit) – Lava Dome x Camila Cabello, Young Thug x Z&L, Daddy Yankee
Milkshake (Mark Blair Edit) – Kelis
PARADIGMAS DO MEDO – FKOFF1963
Basilisco – Candie
intuición pura x yo book me – aggromance
Kickin – Mark Blair
BREAK IT – TV.OUT
Interpretive Dance – SWISHA
hyper blue – ???
Buffle Trutter – WildKatz
Eterna – Crush
Flatline – ???
Unreal –  ???
Drama – ???
Henndawg – SWISHA
Promised Pain – Sebastian Ruslan
UNDER CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES – KROLIK
RUNNING THRU UR HEART WITH AN UZI – ???
Transfer – DJ GIRL
FRIDGE VS D-LO – v1984
The Race (bending flexing&glowing edit) – Detente
Train Hop – Tearz