![Ben Shirken [Ex Wiish] (live)](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5375419fe4b0d45559646016/1752772670170-MNEALGIUGOQGI2RBRC39/Ben+Shirken+-+Sam+Clarke.jpg)
Main has been reimagined as The Gym, and will be christened with the incantations of Seattle queen Sharlese. Combining synth-heavy darkwave, mechanistic electro, wormhole techno and beyond, she brings a sense of melancholic romance and gritty euphoria, summoning cosmic energy onto the dancefloor.
We kick off the weekend with a mega dose of rolling proggy power from Berlin's Byron Yeates, founder of Radiant Records, co-founder of La Noche, and resident of Adonis and Refuge Worldwide. With a sense of playfulness and theatrical sincerity, his sets are dreamy, queer, and vibrant with a hint of raunchy spice.
Read: Truancy Volume 324
Listen: Live at Strawberry Fields 2024
Ground your mind, body, and soul with a sense of intention with Soul Connection co-founder Lovie guiding our welcoming ceremony in The Grove. Lovie's NYC community-minded, vinyl-focused DJ practice focuses equally on the spiritual experience of jazz and new age deep listening as it does on dancefloor-inspiring house and R&B.
Modular synthesist, singer and pianist Arushi Jain transmutes the centuries-old melodic wisdom of Indian classical music into live electronic sets that shimmer with spectral beauty. Often incorporating voice into her performances, she blurs the edges of the digital and the organic into sets that lift the curtains of consciousness.
Read: DJ Mag feature - Arushi Jain’s studies in delight
Listen: Crack Magazine Sunday Mix
SLINK's K Wata is a true sculptor of sound, creating percussive soundscapes that somehow feel both grounded in bass weight and as if they could slip through your fingers at a moment's notice. Every moment and every frequency is dialed in, sharp and poignant – peeling back music to its very essence, while paving the way for a serpentine vision of its future.
Listen: NTS - 100% K WATA
Micro Dubs
A key figure from the early days of Sustain-Release still going strong, Brian Leeds AKA Huerco S. joins us under his new minimal-inspired dub techno alias. His 2024 double LP "One Day" on Incienso Records is a "minimal emo tech" banger if there ever was, and was named record of the year by Resident Advisor. Channeling hazy sun-bleached atmospheres, he offers us a tour through forgotten gems and warped dance music mutations to close out the first night in The Grove.
This year we’ll move the Friday day party to the lake, where certified badman Conducta returns for an all-day back-to-back with DJ Swisha. The London-based Kiwi Records boss has a reputation for relentless bassline pressure, cheeky garage anthems and twists and turns for guaranteed fun.
Listen: 100% CONDUCTA MIX 2024
Watch: CONDUCTA B2B ZACK FOX LIVE @ 99 SCOTT NYC
Juke Bounce Werk's DJ Swisha teams up with Conducta to explore his collection that goes everywhere from footwork, Jersey Club, jungle, classic techno, house and beyond. Based in Brooklyn where he frequently collaborates with AceMo, Kush Jones, and MoMA Ready, he’s now travelling all over the world making NYC proud.
In an interview with pi pi pi, Baby Leo compared his DJ style to fish sauce – "pungent, a bit off putting, but exceeding expectations in terms of flavor and feeling." The Dripping festival co-founder has developed a reputation for the irreverent and unexpected, unafraid of a delightful twist. This should come as no surprise to those who know his background as a metal singer and have seen his brave programming in action at Dripping.
Listen: Live at Dripping 2024
Watch: Pick Up The Flow
Ma Sha is a hardworking boss in the NYC bass scene, running Kindergarten Records and releasing her own high energy, cutting-edge tracks on Nervous Horizon, TraTraTrax and more. Her high voltage stage presence is as electrifying as her selections and she's sure to build The Gym into a freaky frenzy.
Listen: In Session
Watch: Beatport ReConnect: In Solidarity with Ukraine
Friday’s forward-thinking bass and percussion pressure continues with Fever AM co-founder Mor Elian teaming up with Piezo to construct a technicolor playground of mutant rhythms and head-spinning twists and turns. Just like her playful yet headrushing productions and label output, this set will be one for the wigglers.
Listen: Draaimolen Festival 2023
Watch: Keep Hush Live
Building and releasing tension like a coiled spring, Piezo's tracks and sets are rooted in UK bass and dubstep, demonstrated through releases on labels like Idle Hands, Swamp81, and Wisdom Teeth. He veers off from that foundation into adventurous new territories that defy structure and tropes with truly wild sound design and percussion.
Listen: Nowadays Nonstop
Watch: Rinse HQ120
Nowadays resident and local hero Ayesha is ready to push her live performances to the next level, and she'll be bringing us her new set fresh off of its premiere at Dekmantel and Nachtdigital. As heard in her releases on Fever AM, Control Freak and Scuffed, expect adventurous synth lines, colorful leads, and innovative rhythms.
Read: Ayesha’s fascinating rhythm
Listen: Live from MUTEK Montréal
With roots in Ghana, Nigeria, and the UK's reggae, drum & bass and dubstep soundsystem culture, Mia Koden first made waves as part of the duo Sicaria Sound delivering woozy 140 anthems, and has more recently risen as a solo artist delivering powerful sets around the world and a record on Ilian Tape that’s warm, spacious and chest-thumping.
Listen: ITPS092 MIA KODEN
Watch: An Intersection of Deep, Percussive Dubstep & Dub 2004-2024
For our first ever sunset at The Grove moment, Friday night kicks off with ethereal, groovy, and psychedelic vibes from adobeprincess. Blending dubby deep techno, rare-gem progressive and sparkling breakbeats, adobeprincess infuses tender spirit into dancefloor physicality.
British-Nigerian DJ, Refuge Worldwide co-founder, and Kynant Records label head Richard Akingbehin is one of the modern faces of dub techno. He blends rolling groove and warm, hazy atmospherics perfectly suited to The Grove's forest floor. A close collaborator with Paul St. Hilaire (Tikiman), Akingbehin's label has also released tracks from heroes like Donato Dozzy, Cio d'Or and Terrence Dixon.
A resident of Waking Life and founder of the international Spell party, Vlada is a weaver of mystical hypnosis. Her all-vinyl sets blend together minimal-adjacent, acidic deep cuts and oddball old school techno. Grounded, cerebral and steadily building, the Russian-born, Berlin-based artist is a tripper’s delight.
Listen: Waking Life '23
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Crawling straight from the Aussie bush-doof scene, Reptant’s lizard tech takes the controls. His hardware live set channels the raw, primal power of electro through a distinctly contemporary lens. His releases on Kalahari Oyster Cult, X-Kalay, and Planet Euphorique combine squelchy acid lines, minimal techno rhythms and trance-inspired leads into seductive dancefloor submersion.
Listen: Outsider 2024
Watch: themuddshow x Dimensions
Sybil is the cream of the crop for deep techno that’s moody, energetic and always surprising. Based in London and unafraid of adding breaks to the mix, she’s known for intricate narrative arcs to her sets brimming with emotion. She’s also an ambient and downtempo DJ with the mix series Deep Mind Music, and will have a chance to show both sides to her sound with a peak set at The Grove on Friday, and a chill out set in Bossa on Saturday.
Listen: La Nature 2024
MNMT 402 : Sybil
Rome’s Donato Dozzy laid down a crucial blueprint for today's expansive world of psychedelic, hypnotic techno. The Spazio Disponibile head may be a legend, but he never rests on his laurels, constantly exploring new styles in his DJing and production. This booking is many years in the making, and a 3-hour sunrise closing set in the woods will see him in his element creating what’s sure to be an unforgettable moment of organic transcendence.
Listen: fabric podcast 051
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29 Speedway's Friday night takeover of the Bossa Lounge starts with an extended DJ set from Level Party resident Alien D, an artist with solo releases on Theory Therapy, Lillerne, and on Speedway as one half of the duo Dekalb Works. A longtime darling of the NY club scene and veteran Sustain attendee, his music is funky, expansive and sure to catch The Vibe.
Listen: Truancy Volume 332
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Merging free improvisation and computer music, Montreal’s experimental cellist Dorothy Carlos uses electronics as an opportunity to construct alternate realities. Often performing in galleries and institutional spaces, this is a rare chance to see her artistry in the transformative environment offered by the Bossa Lounge.
Listen: My Ideal Is Windy
Watch: Live at Rhizome
Through his label and event series 29 Speedway, Ben Shirken, f.k.a. Ex Wiish, has carved out his own corner of the experimental scene through his sharp and future-sighted curatorial eye, audiovisual installations, and collaborative performances. Following his recent album "H.D. Reliquary," his live set provides an anchor point for 29 Speedway's takeover.
Listen: If-Only Podcast #129
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Shimmering and atmospheric, Voice Actor offers a poetic, intimate, and mysterious approach to experimental music. Murky drones, spoken word, and delirious murmurs blur the line between sense and nonsense, with organic voices and textures often alienated from canonical meaning. Coming from Sheffield UK, her release on Nosedrip’s Stroom label is a new classic.
The artist formerly known as pent has a propensity for frenetic patience and fluid precision, descriptors that may seem contradictory, but align when you hear her skittering percussion unfold live. Her tightly honed, alien sound design evolves like a slowly blooming orchid, organic but beholden to something out of this world.
Listen: OB0538
Watch: Synopses with Madeline Stepien and Lydo
Crimeboys is a power-trio of young icons from the ambient underground: Ben Bondy, Pontiac Streator, and Special Guest DJ. As producers, they're all known for deep, sublime explorations of ambient and dub. As DJs, they control chaos, careening between signature sounds, breakbeats, techno, noise and everything in between, always crackling with authenticity and emotion.
Listen: very dark past
The pool party is all about sassy fun in the sun, and Queens-raised Kilopatrah Jones is the perfect artist to kick it off with a 3 hour set. A DJ with a dancer's sensibility, she views the dancefloor as a space for freedom and connection, combining classic tribal + new school house, techno and beyond.
Listen: Coloring Lessons Juneteenth Block Party
Watch: MAKING TIME ♾️ 2024
BASHKKA, although now based in Germany, draws inspiration from New York's ballroom scene, having spent a decade living in NYC. Her alias derives from the Turkish word for "different," and she aims to breathe fresh air into everything she does, from her intoxicatingly energetic DJ sets and productions, to her activist work outside the club. She will B2B with Gabrielle Kwarteng.
Read: Metal Magazine
Watch: Dekmantel Ten - Radar
Raised in New York and based in Berlin, Gabrielle Kwarteng is now travelling around the world playing pulsating house with an old school NYC-sensibility. Her selections and blends are super tight with ever-ascending infectious energy, playing deep cuts and new anthems with a sexy panache.
Read: Sonic Shift
Listen: RA.837
Hamam Nights and Panorama Bar diva Sedef Adasï will be in her element closing the pool party with her blissed-out proggy house and acid. The German-Turkish DJ & producer is inspired by traditional Turkish Hamams as spaces of healing, intimacy, and connection.
Listen: Dekmantel Podcast 452
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Kicking off a night of hypercolor rave euphoria is NYC rising star Meilgaarden, bringing her signature tranced-out, progressive house energy. Raised in Sweden and partially based in Mexico City, she's a global girlie that's a regular on the NYC club circuit and also an organizer of two parties, Sound Gymnastics and Mister Sister.
Listen: ED0044
Watch: Radio Panini
Co-founder of Montreal’s favorite queer DIY party Bijou, Lis Dalton has also made an impression on the North American party circuit with knock out sets at Honcho Campout, Lot Mass and more. A rhythmic renegade, Lis Dalton goes from squiggly sizzlers to devious downtempo, their selections are expert experiments designed to make you move and smile.
Listen: Campout Mix
Dissident
“Calling the lezzies”... Maara returns from Montreal for a rare live set where she can take it full throttle for a sweaty and playful dancefloor. Whether making 100bpm soulful trip-hop or cheeky 145bpm bangers, her music is unapologetically feminine, psychedelic, unhinged and hard hitting - a defining moment in live sapphic electronics.
Listen: Pitch Music & Arts 2025
Watch: At Kiosk Radio
Splitting her time between New York, Berlin and all around the world, Juliana Huxtable truly does it all. She’s a 4-deck virtuoso DJ, lead singer of the band Tongue in the Mind, renowned poet, writer and multimedia visual artist, and regular at both highbrow arts institutions and sweaty, DIY raves. She returns to Sustain for another brain-scrambling set that will make us question what DJing can be.
Listen: TEXAS GIRL ASCENSION
Watch: The Art of DJing
Recently minted as a Nowadays resident, MORENXXX is one of NYC’s finest techno talents, weaving fast, hypnotic and rapturous grooves with reggaeton + carribean rhythms to create something otherworldly and primordial. As a practicing multidisciplinary artist, their work sits on the intersection of high art and underground club culture, bringing a sense of conceptual intention, subversive energy and radical politics to their DJ practice.
Listen: Nowadays Nonstop 03/03/24
Watch: Lot Radio
After his ridiculously good Sustain debut in 2022, D.Dan returns to The Gym for the closing with a b2b with DJ Tool. With roots in Seattle's lush deep techno scene, D.Dan relocated to Berlin and has since become an unstoppable force pushing fast, raw, and explosive sounds always with the creative twists and technical precision that sets him apart. He’s part of the Mala Junta collective, and releases heady club anthems of “mutant-machine paranoia” via his label SummerPup.
Listen: RA.994
Watch: ARTE Concert
Mala Junta and TAG Chengdu resident DJ Tool honed his sound as a part of Copenhagen's Fast Forward Collective, which brought trance-infused techno to the forefront of the global scene at its apex. He continues to push this hybrid, cutting edge sound, recontextualizing psy-inflected trance into sexy techno. He plays a closing b2b at the Gym with D.Dan.
Listen: Organik Festival
Watch: cdcr.live
An emerging artist from Montreal who has played standout sets at Honcho Campout and Groovy Groovy, zi!'s sound is as propulsive as it is brainy and spiritual. Threading together broken rhythms, spectral melodies, and aquatic atmospheres, zi!'s sets build and build, making you feel all sorts of things in the process. She’ll stretch out for a 3 hour journey to open The Grove on Saturday.
Vinyl master DJ Masda has spent decades perfecting his craft, starting in Japan and now based in Berlin, his music is vibrant and inviting house with a trippy + twisted quality to it. After a standout b2b with Binh for Year Nine, the Cabaret Recordings founder returns for a solo set to turn the trees into our spaceship.
Listen: Bassiani #199
VBX #14
With a unique sound cultivated at Dusseldorf's fabled art’y microclub Salon Des Amateurs, Vladimir Ivkovic is the ultimate deep digger daddy. His sets are full of hidden gems from across a wide terrain of strangely satisfying musical delights that move your body and soul. He returns to The Grove solo after his last session with frequent collaborator Lena Willikens in Year 9.
Listen: Draaimolen Festival 2024
Watch: Salon Des Amateurs Session
"When I go out, I'm always looking for this eyes-closed moment on the dancefloor… and so whenever I DJ I'm always like, that's what I want to create," London's OK Williams told the No Tags podcast. As an NTS resident and global DJ, her sets weave through genres and eras with the fluid grace of water finding its course, turning out dancefloors with that ineffable feeling of joy and free-wheeling unhinged energy when a party really kicks into full swing.
One of the UK’s biggest yet still uncompromising DJs, Ben UFO takes us on an extended pre-closing journey. Ben co-founded Hessle Audio with Pearson Sound and Pangaea when UK dubstep was approaching its peak, but what they released was always shape-shifting out of reach, slightly strange and always on the forefront of something new, brain-tickling, and often deeply moving. His 4-hour set in the changing hours of darkness into sunrise will offer an opportunity to dig into the wild side of his vast library.
Listen: Six Hours At Nowadays
Watch: Kiosk Radio x The Lot Radio x Horst Festival 2024
An absolute legend blesses us with his presence for a 3 hour closing set in The Grove, providing a final burst of energy for the last dancers standing. Drum N’ Bass pioneer and Metalheadz co-founder, Goldie brings three decades of scene knowledge to the decks, and was literally honored by the Queen of England for his contributions to UK culture. With a bombastic personality, he also excels at the soulful and tender like in his eternal classic "Inner City Life."
Listen: Recorded live at Avant Gardner
Watch: Essential Mix BBC Radio 1 April 1996
Lot Radio resident Kat Offline’s shows are lush soundscapes of seductive downtempo, and as a sous chef at James Murphy’s Brooklyn restaurant The Four Horsemen, she’s serving up the similarly delicious offerings. She’ll play alongside her Kfeelz in the Bossa Lounge. Together they’re part of the Miss/Chief Collective which focuses on expressing freedom through diasporic soundscapes.
A resident of The Level Party and The Lot Radio, Kfeelz is also a co-founder of Miss/Chief Collective. While Kfeelz' club sets are high energy and eclectic, her "Swimming" show on The Lot Radio is more focused on the soothing side of her sound, which she'll continue to dive into at the Bossa Lounge.
A local heavyweight in the realm of bizarro bangers, Hank Jackson has been shredding in the clubs, lofts and basements of Brooklyn + Ridgewood for more than a decade. He runs anno records and makes his return to Bossa, this time as the Lounge, for three hours of genre-traversing, after-hours realness.
Read: Truancy Volume 258
Listen: ani/live Sixty Three
Bossa is back as a playful semi-dancefloor in the early Sunday morning hours with Nosedrip & OKO DJ at the helm for an extended tour through their curveball-filled musical libraries. Nosedrip runs the archival Stroom label, and hosts a monthly NTS show exploring new age, new wave, psych-rock, vintage trance, house, techno and everything in between, with a truly impressive ability to make it feel seamless and satisfying.
Listen: Nosedrip & OKO DJ At Solstice 2024
Read : RA Label of The Month: Stroom
We're in for a wild ride along the outer edges of dance music with Athens-based, French-born OKO DJ at the helm alongside Nosedrip. Her radio show and event series, PU$$Y NIGHTMARE show an affinity for the extremes, but she also explores a more tender side of her sound on her NTS show "The Twisted Dream Diary," blending some of her personal dream stories with ambient and psychedelic soundscapes.
Listen: Unsound Podcast 101
Watch: Nosedrip b2b OKO DJ at Kiosk Radio