Advertise on podcast: Wild City

Hiten Mutreja aka Baawra's Wild City mix is expansive and spacious, but without the tropes of reverb-drenched sounds or large rumbling kicks. Instead, the DJ and Pune party-throwing collective MAUSHI member keeps his techno selections carrying an understated quality, with minimal layers maintaining their hypnosis through delicately morphing melodic repetitions rather than the more obvious approach of sustained textures. It's around the raunchy vocal samples from a remix of Danton Eeprom's 'All I Can Say' that things begin to change, entering more dramatic sonic worlds with the tense strings of Alex Neri's 'Tenax Roots' before Baawra gradually leads the journey back into percussive and subtle techno. The mix expands and brings together the room through its journey without losing the somatic pulse.  More information: https://www.thewildcity.com/mixes/21835-wild-city-264-baawra

Bombie can move a club floor. She has done so for stages shared with the likes of dance music giants like Jane Fitz and Special Request. However, the Bangalore-based DJ sets a different goal for her Wild City mix, focusing instead on creating a cerebral journey. The mix kicks from an ambient starting point before jumping between leftfield, dub and downtempo without shying away from radical choices. For instance, when a 303's acid basslines (part of the usual fare for the DJ) do ring out on K.Pierco's 'Loop for the Numb', Bombie slows them down so much that they get removed from their original club-oriented style to fit her specific vision for the mix. Polyrhythmic transitions create big rhythmic leaps while the atmosphere seamlessly deepens into the low-pressure of dub. Only on the breakbeats of the two tracks by dgoHn or the footwork-ish kicks of 'persona non grata (Wordcolour Remix)' by INGI do we undeniably enter the realm of club music. Remind yourself that we started from the beatless spaces of ambient to arrive at these beat-heavy genres to realise the span the mix succinctly covers while fully counting upon some deep cuts.  More information & tracklisting: https://www.thewildcity.com/mixes/21742-wild-city-263-bombie

With just over a year of existence, the party-throwers Future Funk have begun to dominate the nightlife of New Delhi – hosting parties that go beyond the usual fare of house and techno to dedicate nights to footwork, breaks and hip-hop. Even their next, on June 19, sees Taru Dalmia aka Delhi Sultanate jump in with Sanil Sudan aka Tyrell Dub Corp, and joined by the likes of Akashi and DARN, to celebrate the sounds of dub.  The event comes at the heels of Future Funk's first anniversary, which they celebrated with 'The One Year Dance', from which they are sharing a soundsystem-celebrating mix between Pia Collada and Stain as their Wild City mix. The mix is a great instance of a B2B set managing to be cohesive, as it's connected with low-pressure basslines running under snappy electronic drums, while showcasing two distinct yet complementary styles. Pia Collada takes attention to percussive interplays and celluloid samples to interject Stain's bass-heavy drops that move through eras and styles within dub music – creating an overall colourful mix without abandoning the dedicated style. For more: https://www.thewildcity.com/mixes/21727-wild-city-262-pia-collada-b2b-stain-future-funk-the-one-year-dance

Ahead of the sophomore edition in her party series Culture Club, OG SHEZ sets the tone with her Wild City mix. It moves from rising Shillong rapper Reble's just-released track 'Praying Mantis' and an edit of Travis Scott to the Punjabi dance number 'Jersey Jhoomer' and a Cardi B edit – all within the first 4 minutes. Evidently, the Mumbai DJ moves fast, quick-cutting through disparate genres but with a common bounce. 10 minutes in with the cinematic rhythmic layers of 'Ganga Riddim', the mix shifts more into layering, building grooves through works from homegrown talents such as Karan Kanchan, noni-mouse, tricksingh and even Rajah Betta's recent Apache Indian flip 'ChokL8' before ending the journey with Drake and The Weeknd collaboration 'Crew Love'. OG SHEZ brings recognisable voices but, like a true DJ, elevates their individual merit till they slam hard together for the dancefloor. More information & tracklisting: https://www.thewildcity.com/mixes/21685-wild-city-261-og-shez

For Aadhi aka Mo'Homo, "community" isn't just a buzzword as his fledgling work so far testifies. If you've attended any event dedicated to centring queer voices in North Goa over the last year (or even the last New Year's Eve Party at Prana, a calendar highlight for the state's nightlife now), chances are you have moved to Mo'Homo's selections. The DJ, curator and multi-disciplinary artist very much dedicates his practice to "queering the dance floor" through back-to-back shows dedicated to the cause, co-founding The Audacity Collective and curating the queer-centric festival Mix Fruit Juice, besides finding himself on lineups for Nida-led party series Paradisco and dnb India's Bangalore Massive. While it might be a projection on our part, however, given that the Indian government passed a regressive bill disabling self-identification for transgenders between the time we asked Mo'Homo to contribute a Wild City Mix and when we received it, it does feel the mix carries some of the emotional response to it. With a peak-time energy, the mix moves on the edge between textural bass music and joyous house, resounding the resilience of dance music's early days when it served as a place of acceptance, connection and healing to brave the forced repression being meted out to marginalised identities in general society. Kicking off with a few rousers from the likes of Breaka and SUCHI, the mix settles into a more cruising energy with an emotional undertone, most heavily felt on Dismantle's 'Tomorrow Will Be Different' (Mo'Homo borrows the very title for this mix) and then on the penultimate 'Milk' by George Fitzgerald and Fold. Tracklist & more info: https://www.thewildcity.com/mixes/21670-wild-city-260-mo-homo

As the person behind the gender diversity-centring club night QRAVE and the informative gatherings Flower Tools, Avril Stormy Unger knows more than a thing or two about making the dancefloor shake. But when it comes to creating a Wild City Mix, the Goa-based drag, stand-up and multi-disciplinary performer who DJs as Chutney Mary keeps in mind how the mix might be consumed (likely private home-listening) and utilises it to experiment with the space between the ambient and the rhythmic instead.  Sandwiching in her local contemporaries like Fursat FM and Catatacat in a mix that kicks off with heavyweights like Laurel Halo and Hania Rani, Avril doesn't just sequence the soundscapes but plays with them. The disjointed drums in Etapp Kyle's 'Nolove' seem to answer the call for madness in Pan Daijing's 'Let' while underlining it. When the minimal thump of Mython & Jonas Xenon's 'Nudge', straight from techno mecca Tresor Records, enters, their four-to-the-floor drums feel more like an ambient pulse than a visceral one in the context of the mix. The selections only enter pure dance music territory in its quick-switching final quarter, giving the whole build-up a climax.  More information and tracklisting: https://www.thewildcity.com/mixes/21568-wild-city-259-chutney-mary

Though Vishal Unni's Wild City mix lands in the techno territory, it is hardly about slamming drums the genre usually signifies. Instead the hour and 12-minute journey focuses on the atmosphere that lies beyond it.  Surrounded by deep expanses of dubby sounds, the constant thump becomes meditative. The ebb and flow instead comes from whether Vishal rattles your body, like with the shaking low-ends of Plastikman's 'Akrobatix' or Sleep D's '041111', or takes you away from it deep into your mind with the heady peripheral eccentricitiy of cuts like Claudio PRC's 'Ebony Feathers' and Shoal's 'Gerakan'. All of this achieved through selections that will frequently get a techno-head pulling out Shazam or the tracklist as the Bengaluru-based producer and DJ no doubt uses his deep knowledge from managing the sound of India's seminal minimal techno label Qilla Records. More info & tracklist: https://www.thewildcity.com/mixes/21529-wild-city-258-vishal-unni

Our latest Wild City mix from the dancefloors of ParaDisco, the party series founded by Mumbai's Nida Merchant, who was already one of the country's busiest DJs before she turned her focus to building the event series and other efforts like New Delhi Community Radio from the ground up. Dedicated to the joyous nature of disco and house, the parties are not the run-of-the-mill affair of handpicked artists at regular venues, but see extra care in stylistic cohesion across not just curation but the look and feel of the events. Inviting collaboration (their Halloween party saw Delhi's Monkey Bar get decked up with the help of Nabi, for instance) and giving a chance to beginner DJs through open calls, ParaDisco promotes a sense of community, and the growing community has responded so far across cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and even London. As it gears up for a Goa edition on December 27, our latest Wild City mix shares the sounds from ParaDisco's latest iteration in Mumbai as Nida leads the way into a b2b2b between her and Mumbai's own Choksi and Sohail Arora aka Rafiki. The first hour is littered with familiar tunes recontextualised through edits and sampling to offer Bollywood soundtracks from films like 'Disco Dancer', songs by Etta James and George Michael, Four Tet's famed remix of Taylor Swift's 'Love Story' to reel the listener in. Once hooked, the mix undergoes a palpable shift an hour in as the acid basslines of Kink's 'Disco Spectrum' turn the mood a bit more intense and modern as the tag team of three keeps the mix oscillating between sombre, percussive and the occasional popular callback. The mix comes fully live, as record pull-ups give a sense of the height the party reached at ParaDisco's last outing. For more info: https://www.thewildcity.com/mixes/21496-wild-city-257-nida-x-choksi-x-rafiki-paradisco

After closing for the likes of Joy Orbison on nights like The Warehouse Project and going B2B with Baalti in 2025, Yash Mundhra aka EBITDA has made a place for himself in heavyweight lineups gracing Indian dancefloors. Providing a snapshot of his sound at this milestone, the Kolkata-rooted DJ offers a Wild City Mix that doesn't conform to a single groove pattern but draws upon a relentless leftfield selection. The low-end intense mix keeps getting darker till it ends in the moody spaces of 'Deception' by Mars89 and '311' by SIRCH before emerging gradually to more joyous grounds. It moves through different rhythms and shades to cover that distance and back, but remains ultimately a heavy, hard-hitting journey.  More info & tracklisting: https://www.thewildcity.com/mixes/21478-wild-city-256-ebitda

With the Wild City Mix, Femme Music's Sanoli Chowdhury organises the women-only selections to start with the electrifying energy of veterans like Heart and St. Vincent before mellowing the journey. Unreleased tracks from Indian musicians Ro Maiti and Tiana Tara, from Femme Music's upcoming debut release and compilation 'Nyima Vol. 1', lean more towards intimate and heartfelt alongside the acoustic plucks of New Zealand duo Tāl. Going through more introspection through another unreleased work from the compilation, 'Come Sit By My Bed' by Goa-based Tabitha Kagoo, the mix uses the heightened drama of 'Strange Game' by Australia's Jess Ribeiro to dial the energy back up and finish with the oomph of Sade and the romp of Bikini Kill. More info and tracklist: https://www.thewildcity.com/mixes/21433-wild-city-255-femme-music

One of the steadily rising electro and house selectors of the country, New Delhi's Jaidev Kaushik aka Jay Drive found himself entrusted to warm the dancefloor up for the prominent modern-day techno act Helena Hauff at her New Delhi show – the mix from which he shares exclusively via Wild City. With a nod to Hauf's prowess as a vinyl DJ and balancing dark textures with a sustained fun factor, Jay took to the Technics turntables with a strict adherence to the style of the artist he was warming up the floor for. Classic synthesised drum sounds lead the charge alongside equally tightened basslines to prioritise viscerality as the connecting thread, while any melodies or zany noises remain as peripheral details, keeping it light on the senses until elements of acid and tech begin to assert themselves more around the halfway mark with Joolmad's 'Cactus Lover'. Even with a consistent palette, the mix follows a tangible arc: one that builds the atmosphere in the first half and starts throwing colours within the established palette to leave us at a rolling peak. More info & tracklisting: https://www.thewildcity.com/mixes/21404-wild-city-254-jay-drive

New Delhi's UKato distills his usual fare of breakbeats (which has got him to some of the genre's coveted labels like RAM Records) into the laidback groove of dubstep and the underlying pulse shared with techno before finding his way back using the deep low-end as the connecting thread. Starting from Mala, remixes of Aphex Twin and Pearson Sound edits, the mix goes deep into deep cuts in the second half besides throwing in originals, shaking your core with a dark depth while the beats work to keep things fun and lively. More information & tracklisting:

As a tag team digging through their combined vinyl collection, Unnayanaa and Hamza Rahimtula have been bringing the house down. Anyone who has danced captivated to one of their back-to-back sets this year, in any of the go-to local haunts that the pair is making its way through, knows that that metophorical statement isn't a hollow praise. After connecting at AQI (the multi-day event hosted by Hamza's Windhorse Records and Warehouse Mix), the two of India's most long-standing and deepest purveyors of house music tapped into a synergy that should have been obvious. As such, their formidable 3-hour Wild City mix, which captures the pair's recent visit to Bangalore's Indiranagar Social, is a full mapping of house music's DNA. Genre staples like Ron Trent, Kerri Chandler and Louie Vega connect easily with the disco lineage of Dinosaur L and Sister Power while the African and Latin-rooted rhythms of the likes Africanism and Jafrosax provides a percussive throughline to the genre's legacy and influences across continents. Delivered with a puristic sense of craft using only vinyl selections coming together over a rotary mixing, Hamza and Unnayanaa still bring a showmanship to the mix which times its exchange of rhythmic breaks and singalong beltings, almost using the records to communicate with the audience in a very literal manner. Then almost like an epilogue or a tantalizing post-credit section, the upbeat sets gradually shifts via grittier beats into a leftfield comedown in its final 15 minutes. For tracklisting and more information: https://www.thewildcity.com/mixes/21287-wild-city-252-unnayanaa-b2b-hamza-rahimtula

The influence of Bombay sometimes comes through gently included but obviously present samples likely from film soundtracks, and other times through the subtle rhythmic inclusion of the bustling city streets into the percussive assembly. It creates a Bombay-meets-Brooklyn sound that Rajah Betta dubs as "Bombay Club".  The Bombay-born and NYC-honed DJ, producer and radio host Sagar aka Rajah Betta is currently offering this fusion of geographic influences with an upcoming EP and an India tour that has made its way to Goa, Mumbai and Pune so far. Marking this movement with a Wild City mix, Rajah Betta's selections highlight his tendency to move through his influences.  Distorted guitars of alt-rock slip into gritty basslines of club music before the focus shifts to more percussive numbers like Laksa's 'Tech Steppas' featured next to a standout deep cut '145bpm Percussive Brain Cleanse' by Joeti. By the time we reach Batu's 'Inner Space', the mix has fully and discreetly shifted for a dark, high-tempo second half – making its final stop in the gradually transforming but quick journey through contrasting styles. More information & tracklisting: https://www.thewildcity.com/mixes/21230-wild-city-251-rajah-betta

All around the world in dance music, the South Asian diaspora is carving a space for the culture they have carried from their roots to their adopted new homes. One of the leading forces among them: Stick No Bills. The Dubai-rooted collective started as a party spearheaded by Jeftin James aka DJ Jeff and GT, and immediately became a home for people who wanted to celebrate their desi sound and aesthetics proudly.  "Growing up in Dubai, there were South Asian parties, and there were “cool” nights — but rarely anything that did both well," the collective tells us as they made their way to Mumbai for BUDX NBA House to perform as well as discuss the push for South Asian representation on global stages. "If you wanted to hear your sound, you had to compromise on production or setting. If you wanted the aesthetics and energy of a good party, you had to leave parts of yourself at the door." Consequently, the collective tapped into that hunger in themselves and people like them to create parties that didn't make them choose between experience and identity, accruing a community that included film and fashion into the fold just as seamlessly as the musicians of Stick No Bills combine global hip-hop and even pop sounds from their nostalgia of South Asian culture. The edits, flips and sets by Stick No Bills merge amapiano with Tamil samples, Jersey club beats with Punjabi vocals and classic film melodies with pumping grooves.  "Dubai is a paradox. It’s hyper-global but locally fragmented. You can hear 20 languages in a mall, but still feel like your culture doesn’t have a platform. That in-between-ness shaped everything about us — because we are the in-between," the collective explains us. "We don’t mix genres for novelty — we do it because that’s how we grew up hearing the world." The collectives' Wild City mix reflects this as the visceral bass of Skrillex, Fred Again and Flowdan's 'Rumble' combines with the 1999 Bollywood number 'Ramta Jogi' or 2014's 'Patakha Gudi' soon flows out of the flutes running over Future's 'Mask Off'. The mix taps into pop moments as fleeting samples to create its own moments of recognition, choosing energy over cleanliness as it keeps the subs rumbling through hip-hop, dubstep and breaks.  For more information & tracklisting: https://www.thewildcity.com/mixes/21193-wild-city-250-stick-no-bills