25 Greatest Internet DJ Mixes of All Time

Nguzunguzu made their first great mix in 2010, using Art of Noise’s “Moments in Love” to thread two decades of R&B, hip-hop and club bangers from across America. The Perfect Lullabye, their follow-up for Dis Magazine, takes a more global approach, replacing the floating synth riff with zouk tracks and dembow drums. The L.A. duo open with three minutes of harp pulled from Brandy and Monica’s “The Boy Is Mine” then glide through 23 songs that encourage the kind of bumping and grinding that their hyperactive live sets often inhibit: DJ Puto Cox’s “Pensamento 2010” swirls into a Nicki Minaj mixtape cut; an edit of The-Dream’s “I Luv Your Girl” tips the original beat on its side and adds gong hits to the hook. But this mix can’t be reduced to the sum of its samples: The eery, sticky sound that emerges could only be Nguzunguzu. N.M.

Caught in the Middle calls itself a DJ mix, but it’s also an over-the-top opus of music criticism, history and fan fiction, rearranging the pieces from the Beastie Boys’ 1989 album Paul’s Boutique to tell new stories from the original source material. The three DJs worked over as many years, then doubled their efforts after Adam “MCA” Yauch’s early passing. If nothing else, Cheeba, Moneyshot and Food had the guts to accept the Beasties’ challenge, throwing together Bob Marley, the Beatles and Boogie Down Productions just to see what would come out the other side. N.M.

For your rap-purist pals who disavowed Ms. Minaj as a wayward pop starship, cue up this 55-minute lyrical scud, concocted by RyJ, a partnership between glitchy house-techno producer Sasu Ripatti (a.k.a., Luomo, Vladislav Delay) and electronic spoken-word artist Antye Grele (a.k.a., AGF). The ingenious 2012 mix, which takes its name from a Minaj quote about demanding respect that men receive by default, isolates her polychromatic verses ”” no choruses ”” with urgent, atmospheric panache. Marvel at explosive verses from the familiar (Kanye West’s “Monster,” “Beez in the Trap”) to mixtape burners (“Itty Bitty Piggy,” “Handstand,” “Getting Paid”). When the triumphant vocal suplex of “Blazin'” lands, the heads of any skeptics will be permanently blown back. C.A.

In 2010, London’s Night Slugs crew broke with a sound that was wholly their own ”” grime pushed toward glistening techno, then beamed back from a fourth dimension of holographic dancefloors and radiant geometries. By 2012 they were delving into the next-gen ballroom house of MikeQ, reissuing lost Baltimore club from KW Griff and obsessing over Dat Oven’s “Icy Lake,” one of the eeriest records Junior Vasquez ever put his hands on. Co-founder L-Vis 1990’s 70-minute Night Slugs Mix pummels through all of the above, and even squeezes in an original, nearly unrecognizable remix of Prince’s “Batdance.” The result is broad and exhilarating ”” proof that the cutting edge is not restricted by genre or place. N.M.

At its best, house music can deliver uplift, frenzy and ecstasy ”” and Frankie Knuckles would know, as the acknowledged inventor of the form. He brought his wisdom to bear for his Boiler Room set in New York, less than a year before he died unexpectedly at the age of 59. The vibe is charged from the start, with just an hour to cram in decades worth of aspirations. The sound is house in its most deep and classic varieties, with fleet beats that glimmer and shine like cymbals splashing underneath a spotlight. Horns wander in and out, and rousing vocals keep the human heart within it all pumping until the end. A. Battaglia

Brooklyn-based DJ/producer Galcher Lustwerk leans toward deep, moody house ”” a heavy-lidded antidote to the wide-eyed sounds that curry favor in the club. For this set on the U.K. mixtape site Blowing Up the Workshop, Lustwerk takes it easy and slow, with sumptuous grooves that toggle between a skip and a saunter. “Rolling trees, rolling deep, taking E, LSD,” a voice intones early on, sounding like it doesn’t want to be startled. The momentum comes by way of subtlety and a sense of mystery. It’s the sound of the underground bubbling up to make the dance floor shake from beneath. A. Battaglia

With this 2013 mix for Dazed Digital, Aidan Moffat of indie rockers Arab Strap masterfully condenses the Walt Disney pathology ”” childlike wonder swept away by blustery and treacherous adult winds ”” into 37 spine-tingly minutes. Sampling, stretching and essentially chopping and screwing music from the studio’s Golden Age of animated features (pre-war 1940s and 1950s-1960s) into mesmerizing arrangements, Moffat suspends the possibilities of youth right in front of your face, soaking them with anxiety, sorrow and reverb. Barking dogs fade into cuckoo clocks. Bits of dialogue linger ”” “Now I shall never get out” from Alice in Wonderland; “You are a bold and courageous person” from the 1964 album Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House ”” amid the scratchy specters of Peter Pan, Bambi and Dumbo. The Mickey Mouse Club farewell reads as both lifeline and threat. C.A.

Deep in the days of trap and deep house, Caracas-born, New York-based producer Arca led the charge of something far grimier and more sinister. Taking up a thin thread from the old “IDM” days, Arca’s tracks almost repelled dancing, combining spartan, skittering beats with hiccupping hip-hop samples and the occasional layer of pure, atmospheric murk. This 2013 release ”” technically a mix but really just a free album ”” signaled a new shift in underground culture, represented visually in the similarly dark, almost sexless aesthetic of fashion collectives like Hood By Air. Building on the velocity of &&&&& and the like, Arca would go on to create fashion-week runway soundtracks for that label and eventually got tapped for work by Björk. A.C.

During DJ EZ’s riveting three-hour-plus live-streaming Boiler Room set, it often doesn’t matter what music he’s playing, though what he’s playing ”” usually vintage U.K. garage of the past 20 years ”” tingles with the healing power of spun blood. What matters most, as the crowd pushes toward the decks, is to simply watch this guy go. The veteran of garage’s Nineties heyday and Aughts crossover gives a flamboyant clinic in selecting, mixing, blending, chopping beats, and repeatedly teasing out builds and drops with a tasteful intensity. He uses the cue buttons on his CDJs like an MPC, punching in the vocal of Paul Johnson’s house classic “Get Get Down” in triplet time, rewinding it repeatedly. Around the two-hour mark he switches to turntables ”” on the fly! ”” caning Issac Christopher’s bass-bombing dustup of Chic’s “Le Freak” as punctuation. A master at work. C.A.

Night Slugs producer Jack “Jam City” Latham’s third Earthly mix in 2014 signaled his lurch away from club jams into zonked introspection, and it’s a revelation. After a warped, time-lapse version of Little Feat’s aching “Long Distance Love,” he pitches down and blurs Joni Mitchell’s “Furry Sings the Blues” until it sounds like Bryan Ferry nodding out in a bus station, then follows Tweet’s “C 4eva” with a static-y, interlude of excerpts from an interview with political philosopher Herbert Marcuse and a BBC special on teens and porn over a medieval choral drone. Dead Can Dance’s “The Fatal Impact” cocoons Prime Minister David Cameron in goth ooze, while author bell hooks intros Sage the Gemini. It’s a clattering soup of pretension that still blisses out with a glitchy bump of Jermaine Jackson’s “A Better Way” and wraps with the Pop Group’s gnarled “Don’t Sell Your Dreams.” C.A.

In January of 2014, DJ Snake was just overcoming a reputation as a one-hit wonder ”” back then the one hit was EDM novelty “Bird Machine,” not the soon-to-explode “Turn Down for What.” Dubstep DJs Skream and Benga nominated Snake for Essential Mix’s “Future Stars” series on the strength of the former, and the Parisian opened his set with the kind of cool, high-energy house that would sound at home in a sweaty French club. By the hour mark, he’s setting off the kind of bombastic trap fireworks that would light up his next two years of festival sets ”” and the Billboard charts. When Pete Tong arrives to announce the end, we’ve heard “Turn Down for What” and a new remix of Alunageorge’s “You Know You Like It” ”” both of which would remain on the radio well into 2015. N.M.

“Where’s the assassin? Where’s the assassin?” So goes a line of questioning at the start of this curious set of house music twisted and turned out of shape. Murderousness is not usually the vibe associated with house, but Joey Anderson, from the New Jersey/New York axis, has a unique outlook even when churning through the classics. His favored sounds are gaseous and atmospheric, with a sense of creeping and crawling even when the rhythms are running at full speed. He goes big on lingering effects too, with piano lines and “acid”-minded synth squiggles. A. Battaglia

Listen: XLR8R

Madlib can cut and mix with nearly anyone, but on African Earwax he lets the records play at their own pace ”” less rocking the party than pulling out personal favorites for awestruck guests grooving on the couch. Compiled for a gallery show of Jason Jägel’s MF Doom art, the volume crosses Western and Central Africa, focusing on old songs with the feel of turn-of-the-Seventies psychedelic funk. Isaac Hayes looms large, but he rubs shoulders with giants like Ghanaian highlife master Ebo Taylor and Nigerian rock band the Funkees. Each selection would be plenty compelling ”” and expensive ”” as a stand-alone 45, but Madlib doesn’t treat them with the deference of a record hoarder. This music makes him excited, and he wants it to make you excited too. N.M.

Mind Fusion: African Earwax by Madlib on Mixcloud

One of Frankie Knuckles’ greatest productions, the 1991 hit “The Pressure” for gospel group Sounds of Blackness, remains one of the most stirring house tracks of all time, body-moving and soul-saving in equal measure. Opening a DJ set with it is a foolhardy move for even the most adept DJ, but when he’s not behind the decks, Detroiter Robert Hood doubles as an ordained minister. Recorded this past June under his Floorplan alias and captured by MixMagTV, Hood moves masterfully from gorgeous gospel to relentless techno and back on this instantly classic set, with a nod midway through to Inner City’s classic “Good Life.” Built primarily from his Floorplan productions, Hood proves that even as EDM nears ever closer to a creative impasse, you can always take ’em to church. A. Beta