As usual, one of my New Year resolutions was to spend less time scrolling. And, also as usual, I failed sometime during the morning of January 1. By lunch, I was still in my pajamas, sitting on the sofa with my eyes darting back and forth between devices. On my phone, I tapped through the New Year’s Eve stories of virtually everyone I know. On my laptop, I hate read an op-ed in the billionaire-owned L.A. Times about why taxing the rich is bad and felt no remorse for using a paywall remover to do it. And I did all this while watching the Rose Parade, plus an hour’s worth of cartoons. Then I figured I should cosplay an adult, so I put on real world clothes, sat back on the couch and watched General Hospital. It was a repeat of the final episode with Luke Spencer played in memory of the actor Anthony Geary, who recently died, so I kind of had to watch it.
New year, same ol’ Liz.
An L.A.-style storm kicked off 2026. In other words, the hype about said storm was probably worse than the rain itself. By afternoon on January 1, the sun was out and, eventually, I went for a walk along janky, city sidewalks, hopping over puddles and trash. I stopped to take photos of the river, all grungy water swiftly moving between cement walls and train tracks. It’s not pretty, but it’s ours.
Something that I completely overthought about last year is how the social media age has forced us into these very corporate marketing-friendly boxes. So, we identify ourselves by our demographics and we post according to trending topics, making sure that all of our content is on brand and likable. We only show what we think will sell and it’s result in a boring af world where we strike the same poses in the same places with the same song snippets playing in the background. I’m trying to get as far away from that as possible this year.
That’s a long way of saying of that thefirst Beatique mix of 2026 is now live, except it’s not really a mix. It’s more like a radio show, with air breaks and stuff. I made a few executive decisions for this little Mixcloud show, which will be once a month going forward. The biggest one is that these aren’t club sets. If you want to hear a club set, then you’ll need to go to one of my gigs. These sets are designed to hear when you’re in the car or at work or wherever you may be.
I put together these shows for people, not the algorithm. So, there is absolutely no adherence to genre or era or even a vibe. This specific mix has everything from hip-hop to psych cumbia to punk to butt rock to synthpop on it. It is what it is, kind of like listening to college radio, which is where the whole DJ thing started for me. I also decided not to post the set lists because there needs to be some element of surprise here. The track IDs are labeled on Mixcloud and I back announce in the air breaks, so the info is there if you need it. But, if you want to know what was played, you’ll have to actually listen.
This will probably make it harder to find these shows, but, idgaf. I’d rather put out something that I like than something that appeases the algorithm. And I like this. Maybe you will too.
As always, the mix is made by hand. I use Rekordbox, the same Pioneer controller that I’ve been using for over a decade now and the mic on my earbuds. Give it a listen when you have some time.
Liz O. is an L.A.-based writer and DJ. Follow on Instagram or sign up for the weekly, Beatique newsletter for updates on new stories and gigs.
Listen to the January, 2026 Beatique Mix.
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