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.

Ringing out the very last dying embers of summer, Scratcha and Tim Reaper helmed Rinse FM’s Summer Terrace Party. Taking a break from his usual jawbreaker jungle sound, Reaper met Scratcha on UK funky turf in the wake the of the former’s recent DRMTRK EP. There are lots of recognisable moments here in this nostalgic dive into the sound’s golden moments, but they still manage to conjure plenty of surprises along the way.

It’s been a good month for Sherelle fans. Coinciding with the release of WAV Reloaded, the Hooversound co-founder was in the Kindred shopfront this month with Killa P, who helped her revamp “XTC Killa” for the album, for a high-intensity grime-meets-rave workout. The beauty of the WAV Reloaded album was pushing the concept of putting MCs on 4x4 rave beats to a completely new level, and if anyone was on the fence about dipping into the album, this should decisively sway them.

While on his Stateside journeys this month with Plastician, Joker and Snowy, Oblig’s been reconnecting with his homeland and some of the selectors that have visited his London digs over the years. Of the highlights, this B2B with his regular sparring partner Kush Jones is worth your time. They play more to the club and 4x4 side of things, but there’s still plenty of grime and UK heat mixed in, too.

Since breaking out in 2021, Sabrina Solemani has been on a relentless speed run. After securing a Rinse residency early in her career, she has since moved over to her current home at SWU. Chopping and changing between D&B/jungle and techno and electro, her sets are always winners, but this month she gifted us two absolute belters. One on SWU, which you can listen to here, and another for sister station Kool FM, which you can listen to here. Both absolute wall-to-wall speaker knockers from the out.

Drone was in the Planet Wax booth this month to celebrate his recent EP, Stuck In Paradise. The EP in question has been billed as “stepping into a new dimension” for Drone’s Evil Sky label, and it’s true that this one leans more towards a 2-step/garage sound, but Drone’s signature flair for atmospheric gloom is still the keystone on the new three-tracker. The same is true of this new mix, too, as he fills the shopfront with snarling subs beneath the crisp percussive bounce. Tap in and check out the other sets from Freshta, Ila Brugal, Yasseen Faik, DJ Pop Shuv, and Lington while you’re at it.

Sally C delivered a much-needed blast of dopamine this month. Fresh off the back of an appearance at All Together Now, Sally C stepped into the lab with her peerless bag of wax. As both producer, DJ, and founder of Big Saldo’s Chunkers, Sally C has been putting out a tough, ultra-funk-heavy house sound that’s uniquely her own. With some added uplift for these trying times, this is as weighty as anything she’s done. Expect big, beefy drums, squelchy subs and lots and lots of euphoric synths and hoovers.

If you’re not familiar with batida, then this mix from Portugal’s DJ Lycox is a great jumping off point. Essentially, batida was the sond that birthed kuduro over a decade ago, but it’s also the name of the new-gen, revamped version that’s thriving there now. Lycox has been entrenched in the sound since the early 2010s, inspired as much by batida as he was by the dubstep, D&B, and the SWANA/Middle Eastern sounds he soaked up when he moved to Paris. This mix is his take on the sound that prizes idiosyncracies above all, balancing the rough-and-ready edge of the original sound with his own sub-heavy, new-gen version.

Described as “a trip around the world, holding eight different languages and even more sub-genres with a forward West Asian and North African twist and sprinkles of playfulness,” this mix is as global as it gets. Arabic pop, speed garage, dubstep, rap, rollage, and more. Her Boiler Room set with her father playing the oud is still talked about to this day, but there’s no reason this one shouldn’t also be included in Nooriyah’s higlight reel.

Window Kid has always had a gift for stuffing his bars with punchlines, but since going sober earlier this year, he’s been on better form than ever. Recent Toddla T collab “Ramblin Bars” was a runaway success and a run of big shows for his Sum Tour have kept him in the limelight ever since. Still moving a mile-a-minute to capitalise on this moment, the Nottingham MC recently teamed up with Timma T for a 30-minute shelldown. Sprinting through some of his best bars, it’s a nice reminder of how adept he is at jumping between grime, dubstep and garage on a hairpin.

An absolute gem of a team-up here. Two DJ/producers who have done more to progress the frontiers of US rave music over the past two decades sharing the decks together for the Dev’s Drum Poetry show on NTS. As history lessons go, this has to be up with the best of them. If you’re looking for some tutelage, get your notepad, because this has everything from Andy C to Aphrodite, Doc Scott, and Song Of Da Loop Da Loop Era.