Techno, electro, bass and breakbeat combine on a club mix from the Atlanta-based producer.
Since emerging with his debut release in 2018, Nikki Nair’s trajectory has been anything but predictable. Born and raised in Knoxville, Tennesse, Nair’s formative musical experience was listening to drum and bass in the mid ’00s. After a chance meeting with Underground Resistance’s Mike Banks in Detroit, Nair was inspired to produce his own music and throw parties in his home town with his friends under the collective name TEKNOX.
In 2019, Nair’s music began to be noticed by a host of UK labels, including Scuffed Recordings and Mr Mitch’s Gobstopper Records. Both of these EPs proved Nair to be a producer of imaginatively offbeat club music with nods to soundsystem culture and post-dubstep. Since then, Nair’s music has explored many different pathways, from footwork and dubstep on an EP for Claude VonStroke’s Dirtybird label and classic breakbeat on UK label Breaks N’ Pieces.
Nair’s Fact Mix is a reflection of his wide-ranging musical tastes, featuring music from Gábor Lázár, Kush Jones, Hyph11e, Fracture & Sam Binga and more. “I tried to pull tracks from the different parts of dance music that I like, and mix them in ways that highlight what’s common between them,” Nair explains. “There’s club music, American bass music, UK bass music, techno, electro, and more abstract stuff. I also tried to put old tracks in there beside new ones.
The mix also features plenty of Nair’s own tracks and unreleased music, as well as his inspired remix of Palmistry’s ‘Fk A Deal’. “There’s also some forthcoming music from my label n goes to infinity and my friend Alex Falk’s label Island F, as well as some collaborations with ALXZNDR and Thys,” Nair says.
Breaks ‘N’ Pieces Vol. 18 is available now. Follow Nair on Instagram and SoundCloud, and find more of his music at Bandcamp.
Tracklist:
Nikki Nair – ‘The Person or Persons’
Zaida – unreleased
Megan & Shenseea – ‘Lick’ (Nikki edit)
Farsight – unreleased
JUANNY DEPP – ‘AVIANCA’
Howie Lee – ‘Flea’ (Zaliva-D Remix)
Esfand – ‘Dagger Dance’
Jeff Mills – ‘Sugar is Sweeter’
Alex Falk – unreleased
Church Andrews – ‘CA GLUE5 M3’
Gábor Lázár – ‘Effort’
G Jones & EPROM – ‘On My Mind’
Oxossi & Xakra – ‘Senta Senta’
Hyph11e – ‘Black Pepper 炎’
villager – ‘Rave Bender’
Plex – ‘Dirty Cricket’
Fracture & Sam Binga – ‘Xtatic’
Alex Falk – unreleased
Clatterbox – ‘Genetic Code’
DJ ADHD – ‘Buggin’
Stefan Ringer ft. Ash Lauryn – ‘Me’
Nikki Nair – ‘1overf’
Kush Jones – ‘SINE LIFE’
Tom Place – ‘left of center’
Thys & Nikki Nair – unreleased
Nikki Nair – unreleased
Nikki Nair & ALXZNDR – unreleased
Palmistry – ‘Fk A Deal’ (Nikki Nair Remix)
Nikki Nair – ‘Lemma’
Listen next: Fact Mix 850: FUMU
