Do you ever get the feeling that your friends can read your mind?
The other day, out of nowhere, I thought of Anoraak, the French musician/producer, whose tunes have turned up a bunch in my sets over the years. (Most frequently, “Gang,” a Disco Not Disco-style jam that I played often at The Lash coming out of lockdown.) I wondered if he had anything new out, but I was also in the middle of doing something else, so I didn’t look it up. An hour later, I get a text from my friend with a Spotify link, which just happens to be a song from Anoraak, “Magnifique (Italo Edit),” that was released a few months ago. It’s fire. His new album, Golden Hour, is a fun mix of disco, funk and synthpop, but my friend’s pick is the keeper. You’ll probably be hearing it in my sets soon.
Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of nods to 1990s dance music in contemporary productions, which is why I dug up some tunes from the era for the July edition of the Beatique mix. It has nothing to do with nostalgia- a word that gets thrown around online so often that no one even knows what it means anymore- I’m just drawing connections between the past and the present. The full breakdown of the set is below, but this month’s mix includes new music from Mouse and Mars and Lee “Scratch” Perry, Tomora, Olof Dreijer and Matias Aguayo, throwbacks from De la Soul and The Prodigy and lots more. Oh, and there’s a new Madonna song, way at the end of the mix.
After the algorithm decided that I wanted to see little more than Madonna clips for virtually an entire weekend, I lost some of the enthusiasm for Confessions II. It was overkill and I resent feeling like I’m being manipulated by my fucking phone. On Friday morning, though, I gave the whole album a listen. Then I bought it and listened a second time and a third. I think I’m on the fourth listen as I start to write this. It’s good. Really good, but maybe not in the way the album’s title to leads you to believe.
Confessions II is a real sequel to Confessions on a Dance Floor. It’s not a rehash of the 2005 hit album, but rather a continuation of the work that Madonna and Stuart Price began some twenty-odd years ago. So, it’s an album of club music that’s about the club and about life. It’s incredibly smart and thoughtfully made, the opposite of the slop that overwhelms us on the daily. That might be part of the point. (Speaking of slop, ignore all the hype clips and watch the full video of Madonna’s tour of her London home in Vogue Italia. It’s worth 10 minutes of your time.)
Back to Confessions II. It’s a heavily referential album, both to Madonna’s back catalogue and to other dance music artists. It’s also an album-as-a-memoir, with Madonna delving into stories from her early years in New York, her romances and her relationship with eldest daughter, Lourdes Leon. The music history and personal history come together on “Danceteria,” which is the song that I played at Club Underground last night. It’s an important song because all the song’s musical references, as well as the names she drops throughout the song, are foundational to what we know as alternative and club culture now. This is the album’s, “Listen to Mother” moment.
I’ll probably have more to say about Confessions II in time, but, my first impression is that this is an incredibly strong Madonna album, easily up there with Confessions on a Dance Floor, Ray of Light and Music in the hierarchy of Madonna albums. Get it. Listen to all one hour and four minutes of it. No skips.
And now onto last night’s set list from Club Underground. New-ish songs (released in 2025/26) are in bold and link back to previous mentions here on Beatique.
“Compliment” by Rare DM has been sitting around on my laptop, waiting to be played, since the album, Attention, came out a couple weeks ago. Last night, it finally turned up in between Depeche Mode and Boy Harsher earlier in the night at Underground.
You might have seen Rare DM, the analog synth project of New York-based Erin Hoagg, before, as she played Substance LA a few years ago. Attention is her second full-length. It’s a poppier sort of darkwave, sounding somewhere in between Boy Harsher and “Bad Guy” Billie Eilish, but with a stronger techno influence. My actual favorite track on the album is “Significant Other,” a killer minimal synth/techno instrumental that reminds me of a cross between Soft Cell’s “A Man Could Get Lost” and early Matthew Dear. It’s a solid album, so check it out on Bandcamp when you have the chance.
Full set list from last night at Underground is below. New-ish songs (less than two years old) are linked back to previous mentions on this site. As always, thank you for dancing.
You might not expect to read this, but I’m way into Nature Is Healing, the new album from horsegiirL. If we’re IRL friends, though, you might think, yeah, Liz would totally be into something that sounds like the rave at an anime convention. And that’s true. But, there’s also a lot more to horsegiirL than DDR beats and pitched up vocals.
Just to back up a second for anyone who is like, wtf are you talking about? HorsegiirL is a DJ/producer/singer known for wearing a horse mask, or horse prosthetic face makeup, who had a viral hit some time back called “My Barn My Rules.” She’s known for playing hard, fast dance music- roughly equivalent to what ‘90s ravers would know as hardcore or happy hardcore- and has been buzzy for a good while. She played Coachella in 2025, made guest appearances during Wet Leg and PinkPanthress’ sets at this year’s Coachella and will be opening for Robyn at the Forum in September.
Nature Is Healing is horsegiirL’s debut album. It dropped yesterday and it’s a genuinely strange and subversive album. Musically, it’s not really something you can categorize. You’ll have something like the single “That’s My Beach!” that brings together a summer party sound with a play on words to talk about respect for the beach or “Only the Best,” which satirizes materialism. Then there’s “An Apple a Day,” with its relentless kick drum and campy, Europop-style lyrics and vocals, and “Fun Guy Fungi,” an avant-garde, new age interlude. Last night, I tried out “Hands Hands Hands,” a synthpop tune with bit of a Kylie Minogue vibe and a touch of house percolating underneath. Hopefully, sometime soon, I’ll have the chance to play “Music Goes On” because I love how it morphs from euphoric rave track to Pure Moods jam. The sounds are all over the place on Nature Is Healing, but it makes sense as an album because the songs all seem to tied to this very My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic-meets-Nausicaä Valley of the Wind message about taking care of the planet and each other. Right now, it’s not too often that we see people making art that’s both light-hearted and serious, so, if you’re looking for something that hits those notes, I recommend checking out Nature Is Healing.
Last night’s set list from Club Underground is below. As always, the new-ish stuff links back to previous mentions on this blog. In addition to horsegiirL, the other brand new song from last night is “Every Single Weekend” from The Avalanches and Jamie XX.
Friday night is Interpol Nite at Club Underground with both floors of Grand Star Jazz Club open, so you’ll get your Interpol singles and deep cuts plus your indiepostpunkdarkwaveelectronewwave Underground favorites. Larry G. and I are DJing all night and the 21+ party starts at 9:30 p.m. Advance tickets are available now, but, wait, there’s more.
Accidental photo from the DJ booth, 5/29/26. (Pic: Liz O.)
I’ve never been super into Peggy Gou, but her “Energy” mix of Madonna’s new single, “I Feel So Free,” is incredible. It’s an ‘80s hiNRG throwback that works because it doesn’t sound like what Madonna was doing in that era, so it becomes this crazy speculative fiction mix, like imagine a 1984 where Pet Shop Boys and Madonna collabed and it was all produced by Bobby Orlando in between sessions with The Flirts and Divine. That’s what this Peggy Gou remix sounds like. Anyhow, the remix has been out for a couple weeks and I finally had the chance to play it last night. It was one of those now-or-never moments because I had just played “Blue Monday” and “Living on Video” and figured there wouldn’t be any other moment during the course of the night where a new banger that sounds like an old school jam would work.
Two other songs that I tried out for the first time last night are the Fcukers mix of the Angelé and Justice song “What You Want,” which worked really nicely in between new Slayyyter and old Daft Punk, and “Piss Artist,” which is honestly my favorite song on Gelli Haha’s album, Switcheroo. I love it because it’s the sort of NSFW song that you used to only hear in clubs- trust me when I tell you that “Fuck the Pain Away” and “Frank Sinatra” were not radio songs- and that’s a bit of a dying breed of music.
Anyhow, set list is below. Songs that are from the past two years are highlighted and (usually) link back to other references on the blog.
Next week is Interpol Nite at Club Underground. It’s going to be a vibe, so make plans to go. Advance tickets are online now.
The last song of the night at Footsies, “Favourite” by Fontaines D.C.
It’s pretty rare that I play vinyl sets these days, but, last night, I packed up two record bags to play at Footsie’s for my pal Malvada’s party, Acid Rain. It was a good night. The rumor I heard while standing next to speakers was “blah blah blah punk show blah blah blah shut down” and so a bunch of people headed over to the bar instead. Footsie’s was packed, roughly, from 11 p.m. until the lights came on and the last note of the last song (Fontaines D.C. “Favourite”) played.
Vinyl is tricky to DJ for a lot of reasons, but the one reason people don’t really mention is that it’s a challenge to play a vinyl set that doesn’t sound retro. A lot of times, retro is the goal of the party, so it works. If you’re just playing a general alt/indie/whatever set on vinyl, that’s not the case. It happens, though, because used ‘80s records are still plentiful in L.A. shops and new vinyl releases, when you can find them, are pricy relative to what DJs actually make. (Also, there are people who get really rude when you don’t play KROQ’s greatest hits of 1986, but we’ll save that rant for another day.)
Point being, I usually only buy new releases on vinyl when they’ve become my personal favorites and when I feel like I can play them out at some DJ gigs. In the past few weeks, I picked up copies of the latest albums from ADULT., Dry Cleaning and Kneecap, so those all made it into last night’s set.
The upside of vinyl, at least for a DJ who has been around for a minute, is that you’ll inevitably come across some records that you haven’t played in a long time, or, maybe, ever. I pulled The Faint’s Danse Macabre for last night’s gig because, back when it came out, at least five songs off it were hits at the clubs where I DJed. It actually is an important album for the early 2000s, but one that’s been overlooked in the years since. The Bloc Party song in last night’s set, “Tulips,” is one I probably haven’t played since the ‘00s. IDK why.
Set list for last night is below. Songs from the past year or so link to other references here on Beatique.
I’ve been trying out songs from Wor$t Girl in America since the new album from Slayyyter came out a handful of weeks ago. So far, the songs have done pretty well, but last night, “I’m Actually Kinda Famous” kinda popped on the dance floor. TBH, it was a song that I had been thinking about playing since the album came out, but I wasn’t sure if I could make it work. But, hey, you gotta take some chances in life and your DJ sets.
Anyhow, last night I was DJing at Club Underground. (I know I said I wasn’t DJing this weekend. Surprise!) It was somewhere after midnight. Sextile “S Is For” (also on this month’s mix) was playing and people were getting really into it, especially a group near the DJ booth. I mixed in Yeah Yeah Yeahs “Heads Will Roll,” the A-Trak remix, and that group by me screamed and danced even harder. I thought, okay, if they’re down with Sextile *and* Yeah Yeah Yeahs remixed by A-Trak, they’re my people and probably already into Slayyyter. So, I slowed down “Heads Will Roll” a pinch, sped up “I’m Actually Kinda Famous” a lot and mixed them thinking, this is either going to suck or it’s going to slayyy. I guess the latter happened because the group I had been eyeing was now all over the dance floor and other group at the back of the dance floor started jumping up and down and screaming for the song.
Anyhow, kids, the moral of the day is to go with your gut and make it work. Here’s the set list from last night. Songs from the past year or so are in bold and link back to other other mentions on this here blog.
Cover of “Fenian” by Kneecap, which came out on April 1, 2026
It was great to see people dancing to “Fenian,” the single from Kneecap that came out last week, upstairs at Club Underground last night. It’s such a killer song. Plus, it fit into the ‘90s Nite vibe. TBH, a lot of today’s dance music does.
I wasn’t in the theme room last night, so it was kind of anything-goes upstairs, but I did dig up some of my ‘90s to drop in the set. “Born Slippy,”“Halcyon and on and on” and “Papua New Guinea” are all songs that are pretty formative to my taste, as in I heard them when they were new and was like, “WTF is this?!” Also got in some early 2000s jams that I haven’t played in a minute, like “La La Land” from Green Velvet, which I used to play so often that I have multiple copies on vinyl with multiple remixes.
As for new tunes, “A Death in London” from Ladytron was also in the set. I really like the sax on that song and it sounds so good early in the night. It might end up becoming my go-to from the band’s latest album.
Anyhow, thanks for dancing at Underground last night. See you next week! Set list is below. Songs from the past year or so link back to other mentions on this blog. Also, three songs from last night are on this month’s Beatique mix, so give that a listen on Mixcloud when you have a chance.
