Favorite Mixes from April 2026

Brooklyn has entered its annual soft-focus mode. Trees are showing off, people are lingering outside for no practical reason, and the city’s usual noise now comes with a new top layer: birds, suddenly everywhere, singing like they have been waiting all winter to file a collective report. Our preferred listening setup lately has been headphones in transparency mode and long walks through Prospect Park, where music and the outside world can overlap without one canceling the other.

The mixes that followed us through April all had strong personalities. Planatia’s tribute to Astral Industries, marking the label’s tenth anniversary, moves with the care and patience that the catalog deserves: mellow, atmospheric, and deeply attuned to space. JJ’s warm-up from Springkell brought us right back to last year’s visit, that special kind of set that understands the value of gradual invitation. Nothing rushed, nothing overstated. Adhemar’s recording from Monument Festival carries a similarly warm and organic flow, while Craig Gonzalez’s first mix as an Unknown Species resident feels immediately right, a meeting of artist and platform that makes perfect sense.

The month also had its grey-weather companions. DOC and Öjskog both offered mixes that thrive when the day turns a little strange, balancing depth, tension, and odd angles without tipping into theatrics. Tammo Hesselink’s three-hour recording from Espacio Perpendicular sits in its own zone: playful, serious, groovy, and unmistakably Tammo.

Shifting to a more focused end of the spectrum, Rrose’s recording from Technokunst last November is simply top-tier techno, the kind of set where precision and pressure become almost sculptural. Softi takes a different route with a beautiful two-hour trip-hop ride, smoky and unhurried in all the right ways. And GiGi FM delivers one of the month’s most elegant journeys, moving through dub, jazz, and drum & bass with a steady hand and a curious ear.

April’s selections were moody in the best sense. They had weather in them. Some carried spring light, others moved like rain on concrete, and a few seemed built for those walks where the city fades slightly, and the park starts acting like a parallel frequency.

Technokunst Podcast 433 | Rrose