The track of today is my last physical dig in a record shop before the world shut down, back in January 2020. I was visiting my girlfriend in Paris, who used to live near the 20th arrondissement. We had the habit to go from time to time to Yoyaku, a record store (and YouTube channel) which specializes in minimal house and techno, also known as microhouse (although uttering this term may anger purists of the genre, so be careful, some seem to love themselves more than the music they play).

What I find special about this record store is that there is a public facing mixing setup, anyone visiting the store is invited to play. The setup itself is quite exciting, with an awesome Rane MP2015 rotary mixer, something I hesitated to buy for myself for a long time. As many Parisian dj’s come during the day to dig there, more often than not, the decks are occupied by someone playing pure bliss. In most of my digging sessions, at least one of the records I walked away with was one I heard being played by a person kind enough to mix the result of their digging session.

That day was no different. This girl was playing dubby microhouse tracks, a timeless genre sitting very close to my heart. She then proceeded to pop this track: Mike Schommer - City Sleeps.

Mike Schommer - City Sleeps (2020)

This is a rare dub techno gem from the former partner of Rod Modell, aka DeepChord. The slow and nostalgic chords interleave the sounds of the flute, subtly highlighting a beautiful (and unfortunately uncredited) vocal part. Note this down, because as some of you reading may already know, I rarely praise vocals - as more often than not they are used to cheaply fill a track with nonsensical lyrics. The second track, Very Being, is equally good, although even more slow paced and echoey… music to chill and fall asleep too.

Before closing this article, I would like to draw your attention to the Yoyako instore sessions, where they invite DJs from over the world to perform all vinyl DJ sets. My current favorite is the dub techno/house set by Andrey Pushkarev, which is 2h of smooth sailing through sunny clouds. Enjoy!

Andrey Puskarev - Yoyaku instore session (2017)