Opening at 140 BPM with no warm-up ramp is a statement of intent: 'Mermaid's Tears' in Kvaii's remix and Chris Hunt (UK)'s 'Touch the Sky' start this June selection at the top of the tachometer, and from there the program doesn't climb — it manages the descent. Across 'Untold Stories' (138), 'Turning Tides' (137) and 'Iridescent' (136) the tempo drops one step per cut, a gentle ramp that sets up the real twist: 'Breathe', by JODIE POYE and Brian McCalla, collapses everything to 66 BPM right at the halfway mark. It is no decorative interlude; it is the pressure valve that splits the compilation into two arcs.
From 66 to 140: the rebuild
The reconstruction starts from the floor: 'Armstrong' and 'Falling', both at 130, pick the pulse back up with room to spare, and from there the climb is arithmetic — 134, 136, 138 — until 'Aura', by Alexander Turok, Victor Tayne and NyTiGen, restores the opening's 140. A 138 plateau follows with 'You Will Find Me' and 'Wonderland', the most symphonic piece of the lot: Kelly Andrew is a classically trained American composer with perfect pitch, and his 8:08 orchestral mix sounds written rather than programmed. The closer breaks dancefloor logic altogether: Principia's 'Too Soon', 8:34 at 84 BPM and the longest cut on the record, works as end credits rather than a final push.
That sequencing obsession has an explanation: these Top 15 sets distill Uplifting Only, the weekly podcast through which Ori Uplift — Harpaul Kohli, owner of Abora since 2012 — feeds more than a hundred radio stations across 26 countries. For the booth, half the work is already done: impact block (cuts 1-5), breather (6), rebuild (7-12) and melodic resolution (13-15). The only spot that demands craft is the 66-to-130 jump: better to treat 'Breathe' as a set reset than as a transition.
Sources: Abora Recordings · Last.fm