There’s a new Hercules and Love Affair album out now. It’s called Danseur and it’s fantastic. If you were upstairs at Underground last night, you might have heard “Heaven,” which features Faris Badwan of The Horrors on vocals and is my favorite song on the album. (Read the review here) Other new releases in the set include the title track from Soft Cell’s final album, Danceteria (review) and “Exploded View” from Actors latest, Our Love Will Live Forever (review).
It was The Cure Nite, but, I was playing in the not-The Cure room upstairs. Got a few Fontaines D.C. songs in for those of you who came to the club after the show, and those of us who didn’t get tickets. As usual, releases from the past two years are highlighted and link back to other mentions on the blog. Thanks for dancing.
There’s this cover of The Waterboys’ song “The Whole of the Moon” that I’ve been playing throughout the summer (if you see a “secret track IYIYK” on some set lists, that’s what it is) and a bunch of you have asked about it, so here are the details. (You can also hear the song on this month’s Beatique mix.) It’s a one-off project called The Watergirls featuring a bunch of different artists who came together to pay tribute to Keith McIvor, aka JD Twitch of Optimo, who died last year. The Watergirls was spearheaded by DJ/producer Teamy. Lead vocals are from Mhairi McClymont. James Murphy sings in his David Bowie voice on the bridge. DFA is releasing the single, the digital version of which is available now. You can pre-order the vinyl, like I did, which is out in October. All the links are here. Proceeds benefit Beatson Cancer Charity and Scottish Brain Tumor Research Centre of Excellence.
Set list from last night at Club Underground is below. New-ish stuff (released in the past two years) links back to previous mentions here. That’s all. See you back at Underground soon.
Remnants of the Madonna loop on my For You page, June 2026
Fontaines D.C. dropped a new song last week. “Marianne” is the lead single off the Irish band’s forthcoming album, Dopamine Chamber, and it’s a good one with a sinewy groove that’s similar to ‘90s Depeche Mode. The band, whose last album, Romance, is one of my favorites in recent years, only dominated my Instagram feed for a couple days. It was just long enough to convince me to sign up for the Hollywood Forever ticket pre-sale, which I don’t even know if I’m going to do because I’m not in the mood to fight with bots over tickets that probably cost more than I should spend. I guess I was supposed to pre-order Dopamine Chamber, which is out in October, too. I could take my pick between the $47.58 deluxe gatefold, the $28.03 blue vinyl and the $25.48 regular vinyl on Bandcamp, but, nah, I would rather wait until the record is out and support my local brick-and-mortar indie record store.
In the lifespan of today’s clip loops, this Fontaines D.C. one was pretty short. It was quickly supplanted by Slayyyter’s cover of Hole’s song “Violet,” which popped up on my feed through most of the weekend. I don’t think I’ve heard the whole song yet, but the chorus is good, I guess. I don’t know. I had the sound off most of the times it appeared. All I can tell you is that MTV was never this bad about repetition. Instagram, though, has no chill. Like one song and, all of a sudden, the artist usurps your timeline.
Last week, Fcukers released an EP called nuyork, which features three remixes of songs from Ö by esteemed New York DJs Eli Escobar, Justin Strauss and Junior Sanchez. All three of the remixes are top tier, but the one I played last night at Underground, “Beatback (Justin Strauss en la Piscina Remix),” is my favorite. I initially gravitated to it because Strauss, a lowkey icon of New York’s club scene, did my favorite remix of Marc Almond’s song “Tears Run Rings,” which I only play in all-vinyl sets. His take on “Beatback” has a similar darkness to it, albeit with a slower, house-leaning tempo than the very hiNRG “Tears Run Rings.” Looked like those of you on the dance floor were into it as well. Do yourself a favor and get that EP in your collection.
Two other new releases from last night’s set are the Nick Zinner remix of Automatic’s song “Black Box,” which was played early, and Madonna and Kylie Minogue’s collab “Love Sensation (Afterhours Mix).” As usual, the set list is below, songs from the past year or so link back to other mentions on this blog. A couple song you heard last night, like Arctic Monkeys “Opening Night” and Boy Harsher “Blue Jeans,” are on this month’s mix, so maybe give that a listen. Thanks for dancing!
Someone requested “Battle Flag” by Lo Fidelity Allstars at Underground last night, which is not a request I normally hear. In fact, I didn’t even think I had the song on my laptop, but, lo and behold, there it was. If you aren’t familiar with the song, it has a big hip-hop beat and getting out of it is a little tricky unless you want to stay at 100 beats per minute (in other words, slow by my personal standards), which I didn’t. So I started scrolling through Rekordbox and came across this Fcukers song, “Shake It Up,” that I hadn’t thought of playing before last night. It worked. Might play it again sometime.
Next week at Club Underground is The Strokes Reality Awaits listening party. Want to listen to the new album with us? Arrive early. Both floors of the Grand Star will be open and tickets are available now on Dice and Eventbrite.
Last night’s set list is below. “Secret track IYKYK” is exactly that. If you were there, you can try to figure out what it is. Otherwise, it’s a secret. Songs from the past year or so link to other mentions on the blog.
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.
For the June Beatique mix, I decided that I would just play music for an hour or so and post the results whether or not I flubbed any airbreaks or mixes. The whole point of that is that I think it’s really important to keep the imperfections as a sign that there’s a real person making stuff for no real reason other than to just do it. We’ve been in this creepy, brand-centric cycle of culture for so long, where everything we share is supposed to function as a commercial for the next hustle, and it’s really easy to forget that we should do things just for the hell of it. DJing is my job- or, one of my jobs- but I also listen to a lot music because I like it. And sometimes I work out sets at home because I want to know how to songs fit together. It’s kind of practice, but it’s also just kind of how my brain has worked since before I realized that DJing was a job that I could do.
Even though this was made on the fly, there’s a flow to it. A lot of the songs relate to each other in ways that won’t make much sense to anyone who isn’t me. The first part is mostly related to stories I recently wrote or am in the middle of writing. The second half is club stuff, although not all of the songs have made it into my club sets yet. None of them are transitions that I’ve practiced prior to recording this. I’m just kind of figuring them out here. (The Angelé/Justice song and the Slayyyter one I played in reverse order the previous night and, tbh, I prefer that flow.) This is all background stuff that nobody really cares about, but, whatever. We’re living in the dead internet era and I have no illusions that anyone is actually reading or listening. But, because it helps me think things through, I made an annotated set list with links back to references.
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.
