To listen to a mix by DJ and producer Leon Vynehall is to be taken on a journey that meanders from the euphoric to the introspective, from the visceral to the esoteric. Much like his two albums, 2018’s Nothing Is Still and 2021’s Rare, Forever, Vynehall’s mixes are both emotively considered and playfully nonchalant. Following on from his 2019 genre-bending DJ-Kicks instalment, Vynehall now adds his name to another lauded mix discography: fabric presents. “I really enjoyed the process of putting together a mix and building it like a tasteful compilation,” Vynehall tells Apple Music. “I’ve had fabric presents in my crosshairs for some time, and I wanted it to shape up like something that wouldn’t just be purely functional within the context of a club. These are tracks I would play if I was performing all night at a club, combined with what I love to listen to.” The result is an arc of 33 seamlessly sequenced and mixed numbers that traverse everything from thumping exclusives courtesy of producers including Or:la and Skee Mask to Italian soundtrack rarities by Piero Umiliani—plus a specially composed, seven-minute odyssey from Vynehall himself. Read on for Vynehall’s in-depth thoughts on a selection of tracks from the mix. Leon Vynehall, “Climb Into the Cistern” (feat. Wesley Joseph) “This track is the entrance to the mix. The words in the song allude to stepping into the world that is created in the mix and being able to let yourself be taken in by it—because there’s a lot of twists and turns within the 75 minutes that it lasts for. Wesley Joseph is an artist that I love and who is a good friend of mine. He’s got a great speaking voice—I feel like if he wasn’t an incredible musician and artist, he would do very well in voice-overs!” Or:la, “Allaballa” “Or:la is a friend who I’ve known for a number of years through being on the road as DJs. I love the music that she makes, so it felt only right to ask her if she wanted to contribute something to this. I was really happy when she said yes. ‘Allaballa’ is actually an old Irish school playground game that she used to play. The track is on this chugging, percussive vibe and I wanted to place it at a turning point in the mix where things start to pick up a little bit. It starts to get weirder from this point on.” A², “Midsummer Misery” “A² is a producer, singer and rapper from Birmingham. I really like his output, and this song is from one of his newer releases. It’s a melancholic, R&B, slightly trap-leaning piece of music that I wanted to include as a switch-up from the purely electronic, dance-led stuff in the mix. I wanted the mix, overall, to have this push and pull where some tracks might feel a little obtuse and harder to listen to, and then tracks like this pull you back in.” Skee Mask, “Untitled 279” (Exclusive) “Skee Mask is such an incredible and prolific producer and artist. I really love his music, and I’ve known him since he was 18 and producing under a different pseudonym. His last two albums have been absolute favourites of mine, so I’m very happy to have him in the mix. He sent me nine or 10 songs that were all completely different genres and styles for this. It was hard for me to just pick one. This one is more of an upfront, clubby tune which is a little bit techno and a little bit breaksy. It encompasses what he does as a producer.” Avon Blume, “South Bermo” “Avon is one of my best friends, who I’ve known for years from when I used to live in Brighton, and we’ve made music together in the past. He’s been making some incredible drum-funk, super-percussive, bass-laden music recently and this track he sent over mixed in excellently with the Skee Mask tune. It was a happy accident where I tried the two together and they fit so perfectly.” Gaunt, “Raw Cartoon” “Gaunt is an amazing artist in every sense of the word—he makes incredible visual art and experimental musique concrète. His way of producing is pretty obtuse, but he still creates these mind-bending results that are always kept very funky. He’s someone that I’ve had my eye on for a while, and I was really happy to include him at this point of the mix where it gets a little weirder.” Piero Umiliani, “Produzione” “Piero Umiliani was an incredibly prolific Italian soundtrack composer in the ’60s and ’70s. His work has lots of beautiful, soaring strings and is really romantic. He also made a record of really strange, modular percussive music that sounds like it could be released today on an obscure underground label. As soon as I heard this track, I realised I had to stash this away in my back pocket for when I get to do something like this mix. When the time came to put it together, it was on the top of the hit list.” Leon Vynehall, “Sugar Slip (The Lick)” “I wanted this track to encompass the mix as a whole, within the seven minutes that it lasts for. I wanted it to feel super clubby and fun and dance-laden, while containing these weird psychedelic elements, dubby turns and even R&B vocals to incorporate all of the different flavours that the mix contains.” Ehua, “Helios” “Ehua is an amazing producer from London, and originally from Italy, who is part of a collective called Nervous Horizon. Her music, as a whole, is very percussive, with lots of different BPMs. It was particularly hard for me to choose one track from the four or five that she sent, but I chose this one because I really liked her sinister, syncopated approach to the song. It gave me room to move between two different genres of music and it is a really brilliant mood-setter.” Ana Roxanne, “Suite Pour L’Invisible” “When I’m listening to other people’s mixes and even putting them together myself, it usually starts off as ambient and ethereal. What I wanted to do with this mix was to start and end the other way round. I love Ana Roxanne’s music: it is so encapsulating and immersive, and this track ends the mix on a very visceral and calming note. It doesn’t really feel like an end; it just feels like the comedown of the mix.”