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 month below.

Exaktly has been on the road with Yaya Bey this year, touring her recent album Ten Fold along with guests like Foots, Coles, Maxo, Ivy Sole, and Saint Mela. Before they head over to our own shores for a date at Lafeyette in November with Goya Gumbani, Yaya and Exaktly took to The Lot Radio for a special show to whet your appetite. In between DJ Diamond K classics and B’more edits of Michael Jackson, the pair gave us what we hope is an accurate look at what their Lafeyette show has in store with some storming remixes of some Ten Fold extracts.

There’s been a renewed vigour about James Connolly since he returned to the L-Vis 1990 moniker for the first time since he switched to Dance System in 2019. He dropped the Dance System name last summer due to a frustration with modern dance culture and the change seems to have done him a lot of good. He was getting a tonne of bookings as Dance System, but it seems like there was a ravenous appetite for L-Vis1990. As both producer and DJ he’s been working overtime and that creative vim is present throughout this Keep Hush set.

Medley P was over in Toronto recently and while out there he connected with Freeza Chin for a jumpy, grime-oriented set speed-run. Freeza (and his regular cohort Jayemkayem, who is about to release a grime white label she recorded while they were both in the UK this summer) is a diehard and tireless supporter of the UK underground so he makes for an ideal sparring partner with Medley. Firing dubs and edits and slick-fingered blends at each other, it’s tough to keep up—just make sure you don’t miss that Jodeci X Emalkay blend from Freeza.

Harlem selector Odalys was on Level III this month. Kicking off with a garage flip of Little Simz and moving through an exhaustive run of the Harlem Selector’s collection of flips, refits and edits. Sophie Ellis Bextor gets the B’more treatment, Skepta runs up against Darude, Ice Spice gets the Gou treatment, and Daddy Yankee gets shoved in a Jersey Club blender. Pretty much all your favourites get a going over with breakbeat, jackin’ house, tech house, hard drum, Baile funk, all rearing their heads. There’s a lot going on, but it’s hard not to enjoy.

Slick’s latest show was eclectic as ever this month. It’s always a crapshoot trying to work out what you’re going to get from the London-based producer and this show was one of his most varied. Next to tracks from B:Thorough, ESP, HNRK, Pholo, Neva, Professor Stranger, and more, we also get a heavy trance edit of Vince Staples, some drill, some trap, and a wad of really sludgy dancefloor numbers that call to mind the best of the Boxed club nights.

For the closing ceremony of their summer rooftop season, Rinse called on some of the names making their current run so stellar. Along with Nancy June and TSVI were the mighty Plastician and Oblig. Both rooted in grime, their explorations of sounds beyond 140 have made them two of the most revered and exciting DJs the country has to offer. For this set, they poured all of those genres, BPMs, and years of experience into a stomach-churning, chest-punching hour of power. From cruddy grime to slap-bass funk and foot-stamping house, it’s all here.

Joining us from Paris this month, Teddy Kitano (whom you might recognise from his cameo in Plastician and Oblig’s set) was in the Reprezent studio with Charisma this month for a fast and furious B2B session. Keeping the energy sky-high from the outset, they spun UK funky, club, grime and everything else with jams from Ila Brugal, Spooky, Killjoy, Jossy Mitsu, Ronnie Loko, Sam Binga and Charlie Fracture, Sam Interface, Joy Orbison and Ms Dynamite, Hamdi, K65, and a lot more besides.

Philadelphia-hailing XLUCID kicked up a storm this month. For the latest Freak Flag show, XLUCID went all in on an hour of contrasts. Light against dark, futurism against nostalgia, it was all in there. Taking in acid, breaks, big kicks, silky melodies and more, this was an expert showing of what it means to build mood and atmosphere with the lightest of touches.

There was a rare piece of good news this week as Field Maneuvers announced that they would officially return next year. It had been off and on the past couple of years and the outlook wasn’t exactly positive, but after a successful round of crowdfunding and a few other wins for the organisers, it was confirmed the festival would be back next August. To celebrate, they spotlighted some of the best of this year’s set, including this blistering, nosebleed set from Manix aka Marc Mac of legendary hardcore pioneers 4Hero.

There’s been a lot of fun stuff going down at the Kindred sho front this month—Guy Lawrence of Disclosure’s set was a highlight, of course—but, personally, our vote goes to RE:NI. One of the most exciting selectors in UK rave, her sets stitch together dubby techno, breakbeat and jungle. They’re tasteful, undeniably cool, but they go unnervingly hard. This set zeroed in on the jungle side of her ouvre and should serve as a timely primer for her next release, Thousand Yard Stare, which lands October 10 on Relax LDN.