Between SoundCloud, YouTube, Mixcloud and everything else, it can feel like we’re being overwhelmed by an impenetrable, almost infinite stream of music, often of varying quality. You need a soundtrack to start your weekend right, but you don’t have the requisite lifetime to trawl through the week’s new DJ mixes. To help you out, we’ve done the busy work for you. We’ll be running this series every single Friday of every single week to bring you the very finest house music, grime, techno, bashment, R&B, trap, D&B, Amapiano, and no doubt a bunch of stuff that doesn’t have a name yet.

Dive into TRENCH Radio’s best mixes of the week below.

Back in summer 2021, producer Dean M.F. Johnson, vocalist Shea Soul, and DJ Paris started Aprtment Life, a series where they bring artists and DJs into their plush apartment to perform freestyles and covers. This year, they started filming DJ sets and for the latest one they brought in Vanessa Maria for a session of Jersey Club, Baile funk, house music and more. A 48-minute sprint, she kicks off with a foolproof slammer from Arma and then packs in movers from Sir Hiss, Eliza Rose, HudMo & Nikki Nair, Anz, and Addison Groove.

Slimzee and Trends have been firm friends for a good long while now. Along with Boylan, they’ve been banging out grime and dubstep fusions since the latter half of the 2010s. In August, the trio put out three-track EP Ninety-Nine via Etch’s Sneaker Social Club and they’ve been pretty consistent with releases on their own labels, Slimzos Recording, Rotpot, Mean Streets (which celebrates a decade in the game next year), and Lean Streets. Prolific as they are in the studio, they’re even more prolific on air. Most recently, Slimzee and Trends hit Mode Radio for a bumper two-hour session of exclusives and dubs with some fancy fader work from Trends.

Dan Beaumont was flying solo dolo on the latest Rhythm Connection show—save for a bleary-eyed phone-in from usual co-host Nadia Ksaiba. It’s a full-bodied two-hour session of beefy house and techno, and it comes ahead of the Dan and Nadia’s Boxing Day rave at Corsica Studios. If you want a taste of what to expect, this one features dubs, edits and originals from Unker & R417, Breaka, Belfast duo Black Bones, plus, as Dan puts it, some serious pumpers in the final stretch.

Having retreated from the music industry, Benga’s been understandably quiet for some time now, making only occasional appearances either in the dance or on the airwaves. A recent set at fabric with his old friend Skream was nothing short of emotional. Since then, they’ve announced a 140 set at Boiler Room early next year with heavy hints that they’ll be doing much more as a duo next year. In the meantime, Benga made his return to Rinse with this scenic trip through techno, house music, hip-house, electro, acid and more. Welcome back, Benga.

We had to include one wrap-up mix and it’s a Jon1st special. Cramming in 60 tracks from the past 12 months, it’s a herculean effort that covers pretty much every possible strain of club music and rave fuel. Mercifully there no gimmicks, just an hour of crackers and smackers from the worlds of grime, techno, drum & bass, and a bunch more besides.