In The Remix 2026: Indie Dance — An Anthology That Maps the Present
Compilations like In The Remix 2026: Indie Dance don't happen by accident. They are sonic surveys of a genre in full bloom, and this twenty-track collection — spanning labels like Live At Robert Johnson, Permanent Vacation, Watergate Records, Hooj Choons, and Awesome Soundwave — offers one of the most coherent portraits of contemporary indie dance released this cycle.
The opening statement is bold: Red Axes reshape Tim Paris and Foremost Poets' That Boy into seven minutes of postpunk-inflected Tel Aviv groove, all tension and forward momentum at 125 BPM in F Major. Then Curses takes the unlikely pairing of Carl Cox and Perry Farrell and turns Joya into something ceremonial and shadowy — a remix that transcends its source material and demands repeat listens.
Between the Dancefloor and the Interior
The curatorial intelligence here lies in the range of emotional registers covered. Massimiliano Pagliara brings understated European elegance to Sasse's Backwards at 124 BPM in C Minor, while The Blessed Madonna takes Obongjayar's Not In Surrender into near-devotional territory at 68 BPM — proof that indie dance is far more than a dancefloor genre. Yu Su's rework of Dear Treasure drifts at 82 BPM with a balearic grace that feels timeless rather than retro.
The inclusion of Hooj Choons material is a curatorial highlight: Jason Peters' remix of Katcha's Touched By God reconnects with the label's progressive trance legacy at 128 BPM without sounding like a nostalgia exercise. Philipp Lauer's cheekily titled Trance I Caries rework of Verdo's Ballad navigates 120 BPM with conceptual wit very much in keeping with the Hell Yeah Recordings aesthetic.
Standout Tracks
- That Boy (Red Axes Remix) – Tim Paris, Foremost Poets
