AYA twists the ghosts of the hardcore continuum into phantasmagorical shapes on this breathtaking mix.
It was bootleg software that set Aya Sinclair, aka AYA, on her journey as a producer. She had already been playing drums and guitar since early childhood, but armed with a handful of burned CDRs of rudimentary tools, she began to take her ideas into a new realm. “I just used to drag in loops and pile up as many channels of drums as possible,” she told Mixmag earlier this year.
Years later, that mindset still holds firm. AYA’s impressive productions, initially under the LOFT moniker and more recently under her name, aren’t tied to genre, but ideology and intent. Deconstructed club is too lazy a tag for music that can’t easily be separated from its roots in dance music, even when it has been abstracted beyond recognition; AYA makes club music, it’s just not template music.
After a slew of releases on the Astral Plane Recordings label, AYA made her Tri Angle debut this year with the astonishing And Departt From Mono Games EP. A collection of eerie soundscapes and pounding rhythms, the record ends with ‘That Hyde Trakk’, surely a contender for track of the year with its collapsing breaks and tongue-in-cheek builds, drops and 4k UHD chaos.
Since 2017, AYA has been recording a regular radio show for NTS, throwing a spotlight on local sounds from her collaborators like boygirl, a queer-focused collective she runs alongside Iceboy Violet, MICHAELBRAILEY, Leo and salt pillar. AYA’s FACT mix is a celebration of 2019’s most exciting eccentric fringes, twisting the hoarse cough of British dance music through the gauze of the global dance continuum and back into futurist abstraction. Thankfully, it’s also fun.
Tracklist:
Leo – ‘Death is Quite Clearly Not What it Used to be’
Clyde – ‘JME’
Carltoon Doom – ‘Ard’
6SISS – ‘prisma’
J. Albert – ‘Money Between Friends’
???? – ‘????’
The South Yorkshire Mick Mucknall – ‘Nigel Mansell’
hmurd – ‘Shepards Delight’ [AYA asset strip]
Bambounou – ‘Kosovo Hardcore’
The South Yorkshire Mick Mucknall – ‘Nigel Mansell’
Air Max ’97 – ‘Xhrinicibles’ [ft. AYA]
Metrist – ‘????’
AYA – ‘I Will Not Come At Your Beck And Call I Am At Home Preemptively Mashing Up The Dance That Is Where I Am’
Aquarian – ‘Tarp2’
Surly – ‘4Q 510-511’
Mohammed Reza Mortazavi – ‘Going’
Duswunder – ‘Over Everything’
Oli XL – ‘Power Over Death’
Réelle – ‘Floating’
Burial – ‘Speedball2’
???? – ????
Kobosil – ‘Backmask N’
xin – ‘That There Is None’
DJ Space Heater – ‘Chelsea Gabber’
AYA – ‘Badman VIP VIP’
Air Max ’97 – ‘????’
AYA – ‘Fantas II : Electric Boogaloo’
XS Project – ‘Detka’ (DJ Barabass Remix)
sign offline – ‘my love’
Bassboy feat. Trilla – ‘Etap Riddim’
AYA – ‘think i’m gonna make a homemade weapon’
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