Melbourne Deepcast

Naarm's own Babycino steps up next mixing dubwise rollers and summery house digs. A budding DJ, producer and open-air dance specialist, his Reasons To Be Cheerful parties and Skylab shows blend classy jams with playful flair, meaning 100% good times for the groove inclined!

@babycinoofficial

Q. What sounds or feelings did you draw upon when gathering inspiration for this mix, and what listening environments could you imagine it being best enjoyed?

I wanted to try to keep it nice and hypnotic in parts, mostly through the first hour or so. So there’s some dub tinged house, deeper house cuts and then into some kind of psychedelic, percussive funk jams. All roads lead back to House music though, in some form or another.

If I can lock in, lose my train of thought and kind of forget where I am for a little bit while listening to a mix or music. That’s the best. Almost like entering another realm.

That being said, I do like flourishes of chaos being injected as well, so hopefully there are some well placed disruptions and switch ups.

For the listening environment. Perhaps a long car journey, or a long walk/ jog through a changing landscape

Q. Are there any records in the mix that you were especially excited to share, and what is it about these songs that resonate with you so much?

A. There are a few favourites in the mix but I have to say that the closing track, the Janeret remix of Flash And The Pan’s Walking in the Rain, is on heavy rotation at the moment. I absolutely love the original, it’s so moody and ethereal while also being raw and kinda edgy. This particular remix reworks it for a dancefloor, while keeping that vibe sooooo well.

Q. Your Reasons To Be Cheerful parties have become a much-loved part of the annual party calendar, featuring a smorgasbord of house and disco legends the likes of Jex Opolis, DJ Lloyd and Chee Shimizu to name a few! Tell us about your plans for the party going forward, and what you’ve most enjoyed about the experience thus far?

A. Aw, bless! Thank you so much! Going forward, I just want to work on maintaining a consistent quality with the curation and to ensure it’s a free and open space, musically and spiritually. Quite simply, I really want to focus on improving with each event, adding more visual art elements/installations, not to reinvent the wheel but just to add my own personal weirdness to the space.

Things I’ve enjoyed so far.. I’d say meeting people and inviting artists who I really respect, whether it’s an OG like Chee or connecting with some of the local peeps that I deeply admire.

A specific top experience so far is going b2b with Chee Shimizu at Angel. He really is one of the best! Chee and Weatherall are the guiding stars for me, so it was such an honour to go beat for beat with a master!

Carving out a special place within Taipei's harder-edged sonic landscape, the Mango Season party founder and infinitely groovy DJ Pocari Sweaty has been at the forefront of Taipei's house scene for the past few years, offering Mango Seasoners extended dubs, deep euphoric house and obscure disco journeys from guests like Telephones, Benedek and Mayurashka to name a few.

Currently in Australia for the first time, we're lucky enough to have him in the mix with a wonderfully spaced out selection of floated techy groovers and deep house music in its finest form.

@pocari_sweaty

Q. What sounds or feelings did you draw upon when gathering inspiration for this mix, and what listening environments could you imagine it being best enjoyed

A. To be honest I didn’t put too much thought into this mix, and didn’t go into it with any plans to release a mix. I just hooked up a recorder and started playing from a loose selection of deep and techy records I’d recently bought, and I liked how it turned out! Thank you guys for digging it too, and for putting it out!

Q. Are there any records in the mix that you were especially excited to share, and what is it about these songs that resonate with you so much?

A. I would say I’m especially stoked to share this Terry Francis track Rock Hopper. I bought this record from a discogs seller in Taipei called bigbadjimmy. It turns out he was a DJ in Taipei in the late 90s / early 00s and even opened for Terry Francis in Seoul on his first Asia tour back then. I think it’s really special to have a direct lineage to this record’s original context!

Q. Your Mango Season parties have become a regular fixture of the Taipei underground scene over the last few years with a host of deep digging guests covering all kinds of house and disco leaning sounds, tell us about your idea behind the night and what have been some of your favourite memories thus far?

A. Taipei is definitely a city that likes heavy music, so I started Mango Season to create the kind of warm and sweet party that I really want to go to.

Damn there are really too many good memories, all of the guests have been amazing. Dea’s closing track last August, 多情沒有問題 by 馬玉芬 was really fun, the entirety of Telephones’ set last October was incredible, and last month MLiR and I played b2b all night for the second anniversary of the party. We didn’t plan a thing and played one track each for the whole night. Perfectly in sync, it was awesome.

MDC's @myles-mac back once again with a trip friendly scuba dive through the best bits of 2025.

Tracklist:

T.E.C. - Hi Set & Low Set // Serenity Now
Puli - C.S.B. // Open Space
Milou Moon - Circles (Guy Contact Remix) // ORiGiN Recordings
Guy Contact & Solar Suite - Perfect Harmony ft. Sa+ga // Wax’o Paradiso
Musicentrydelete - Sub AM // Mood Hut
Alex Kassian X Spooky - Orange Coloured Liquid (Part II) // Test Pressing
Greville - Electric Push CPU Mix // Mad Habitat Recordings
Anthony Naples - Scanners // ANS Recordings

Retza & DJ Activities Man - Play (Round 1) // All Kinds of Music
Pancratio - A Never Ending Story // Love On The Rocks
RAMZi - flufi // FATi Records
Pool Sharks - Orange Crickets // Pepper Recs
Aldonna - Pink Beluga // Semi Delicious
Pancratio - Groove Throtter # 2 // Faith Beat
DAWS - Feel So (3am Mix) // Correspondant
Deetron presents Soulmate - The Visitor // Ilian Tape 

T.E.C. - 7001 On Plastic // Serenity Now
Tornado Wallace - Bitter Suite // Test Pressing
Command D - Fever // Self Released

Other Joe Feat. CTP - Ice in my Veins // Best Effort

Cut from various projects and produced between Berlin and Melbourne over the last fifteen years, LAN label head and hardware specialist Willis Anne digs through his archives to deliver mix made up of 100% unreleased and forthcoming material.

@willis-anne

Q. Being a mix comprised solely of your own music – a housier than usual deep dive into the unreleased archives of your wide ranging back catalogue, how did you come up with the concept for the mix, and how would you say your sound has evolved over the years?

A. My first love is hip-hop and house music, that’s how I started making music. Over time I moved into more abstract and experimental territories, before eventually bringing all those elements together into something more hybrid. I still make house music, but today I’m mostly known for hybrid music, and playing wide-ranging, dynamic sets across genres, which is also what I explore with my alias FOREIGNER.

I’ve known Melbourne Deepcast for a long time, even before moving to Australia, so I was honoured to be invited! There are so many strong mixes on the platform, and I wanted to do something special. I thought - why not record a mix made entirely of my own productions! I properly dig into my archives, and as a result it includes unreleased material from different periods, as well as a few upcoming tracks. In that sense, the housier focus makes this mix a bit of a rare snapshot.

Q. Looking back, where were you looking to gather inspiration when producing these tracks? I know you were living in Berlin for quite a few years, who or what was inspiring your creative process back then?

A. Beyond Berlin’s DJ culture, I was especially inspired by artists performing live in clubs. That period aligned with my hardware-only approach, and I went deeper into that way of working. I was strongly influenced by the left-field hardware house scene at the time, particularly artists from L.I.E.S. Records like Steve Summers and Bookworms. Spending time with them, jamming, and being close to that environment had a big impact on my process. Many labels and artists working in that space emerged and flourished during the 2010s, and that era shaped a good part of the music in this mix.

Q. I know you’ve been a driving force behind hardware based electronic music production here in Melbourne over the past couple of years with JAM, your open invitation electronic jam sessions.. Tell us about your idea for these community jam sessions, and what has been the most rewarding part of the whole process?

A. JAM takes effort to run, but it’s a very special project. People are genuinely grateful for the space, and it’s rewarding to see how much they enjoy connecting and making music together. The idea is to make access easy and remove intimidation, and that approach really works. What I find most rewarding is seeing beginners gain confidence and have fun. People who don’t know each other come together, start jamming, and create something on the spot. That sense of openness and shared experience is what makes JAM meaningful for me.

Operating on a global frequency with a knack for genre-blurred grooviness, Berlin-based Zeynep delivers a transportive blend of rolling rhythms and cross-pollinated mind-lockers that hit all the right spots. For those that like their grooves deep, percussive, techy and mysterious you've come to the right place.

@zeynep

Q. What sounds or feelings did you draw upon when gathering inspiration for this mix, and what listening environments could you imagine it being best enjoyed in?

A. First off, I want to thank you for letting me be part of this incredible mix series :‘) what an honor! As a big fan of MDC I wanted to tap into a deeper, more mysterious side of myself while still holding onto the sound that feels like “me”. I tried to let the mix slowly build into that, so you can hear different influences coming through before it settles where it needs to be.

As for the ideal listening environment... I like thinking about how it can live in different contexts. That’s why I love when people surprise me with where they play my mixes. Someone once told me they put one on at an orgy which might be the highest compliment I’ve ever received. So yeah, whatever place you’re in (physical or emotional) if it fits, it fits.

Q. Are there any records in the mix that you were especially excited to share, and what is it about these songs that resonate with you so much?

A. The opening track export city by project runaway from 2020 really captures the kind of rhythm I’m into right now. It’s built around infectious percussion and a sleek, pulsing groove. It kinda mirrors internal restlessness and the desire to move which is what draws me in I guess.

The closing track No Reason by Vertical Blank from 1993 has these darkwave vocals that feel sad and euphoric at the same time. It’s got this “the end is near but you’re not sure if that’s good or bad“ energy which sounds strange but that ambiguity is exactly why it resonates with me.. if that makes sense?

Q. I know you’re a big advocate of community focussed DIY parties, what are some events you’ve played over the last year that you’ve felt best embody community spirit, and what do you feel are some of the most important elements required to achieve it?

A. Two of my favorite gigs this year were Earth Dog in NYC and noclubs in Amsterdam. Both were proper DIY raves in secret locations, built entirely from scratch with great sound and music by great people who genuinely care. What made each of them so special was how much they embodied real community spirit: everyone contributing, looking out for each other and creating a space that truly feels owned by the people in it.

You feel it in how accessible and transparent everything is, in the shared ownership and in the effort to keep things affordable while inviting diverse voices into both the lineup and the organization. Being part of experiences like these makes people feel safe and part of something they get to shape, rather than just attend. And I think that’s a key element. Big up to both crews and anyone out there for keeping that culture alive and staying real and true to themselves!