The Playlist as Time Machine - April 2026 Playlist
Portfolio digging, old friends on new records, and why I’m still doing this every month.
I’ve been working on my portfolio and resume this month (it’s still very much a WIP and trending toward the absurdist internet art version of a resume] — one of those exercises that sounds straightforward until you’re three hours deep into old hard drives and folders you haven’t opened in years. In this case, it sent me back through a lot of old NickyDigital.com material: photos, flyers, setlists, documentation of years of events I either forgot I’d done or couldn’t believe I’d pulled off.
There are some absolute gems in there. But more than the photos, what kept stopping me was the music. Specifically the artists. Fifteen years, five or six nights a week, building rooms around artists I wanted people to hear, it was selfishly motivated, honestly. I wanted to hear this music with other people. It turns out that’s also just what a DJ is.
That’s also why this part of the newsletter exists. The playlist is the closest I can get to being a 20 something and having energy and creating community around music and dancing and partying. So I keep making it every month. And this month, maybe more than usual, you can hear the through-line.
The Ones I Go Way Back With
Saadi’s “Bad Seeds” made it onto this playlist, and finding it in my library again while going through that archive felt like bumping into an old friend. I’ll leave it at that. [Photo gallery of Saadi performing at my parties from 2010 & 2011]
Róisín Murphy and DJ Koze have been in each other’s orbit for years, and their collaboration on “The Universe” (from Róisín’s Hit Parade record) is exactly what you’d want from two people who understand each other that well. I’ve worked with Koze and his instincts are just different. He hears things in a track that nobody else would think to pull out and somehow matches that with the next track that you’d never expect to hear … and it’s just GREAT.
[Photo gallery of Resolute & Blkmarket Boat Party with Dj Koze and Henrik Schwarz from 2014]
José González had what felt like a surprise album drop this spring, Against The Dying Of The Light. I admit, it’s been a long time since I’ve thought about him, his music, the bouncy balls. This new track came across my speakers. I liked it, but my jogged brain NEEDED to hear “Heartbeats”. I was instantly transported back to 2003, a sophomore in college, in my Emerson College closet of a dorm room. Then I googled it to find the Bravia video and realized that for the past 23 years I’ve been wrong — I thought The Knife covered González, but according to the internet, I was wrong. I wonder how different my life would have been if I hadn’t been living under these false pretenses all along. can still stop me in my tracks and melt me into a puddle
[Photo Gallery of NY Mag’s Campfire on the Canal from 2008]
[Photo Gallery of The Knife headlinging Iceland Airwaves in Reykjavik in 2014]
The Full-Circle Moment
I photographed Avalon Emerson as part of my collaboration with Together Boston. Watching them evolve from DJ sets into a full live band on Written Into Changes has been one of the more interesting artist trajectories I’ve tracked in recent years. “Earth Alive” is on this playlist and it does what the best tracks from that record do, it sounds like a DJ set and a live band simultaneously, similar and completely different all at once. If you saw them perform before the band era, give this album a real listen.
[Photo Gallery of Avalon Emerson performing at Together X Disc Woman in Boston, MA in 2017]
A Few New Arrivals
Beck dropped “Ride Lonesome” mid-month and it’s exactly right — a little dusty, a little strange, leans into the title’s reference without being precious about it. Nation of Language covered Springsteen’s “Tougher Than the Rest” and Ian Richard Devaney sounds like he means every single word.
And then there’s track 12: “Yeh Chand Koi Deewana Hai” by Alka Yagnik and Kumar Sanu, from a 1972 Bollywood soundtrack. I’m not going to over-explain how it ended up here. Sometimes a song finds you and it fits and you leave it where it landed.
Full Track List:
Satellite (Intro) | HAAi; Obi Franky; Jon Hopkins; ILĀ; Trans Voices
Satellite | HAAi; Obi Franky; Jon Hopkins; ILĀ; Trans Voices
The Universe | Róisín Murphy; DJ Koze
Listen2me | Foxwarren; Andy Shauf; Darryl Kissick
Etyd | José González
Lovelovelove | Flea
Rude Crude Lude | Chassol
Jet Boy Jet Girl | NIGHT MOVER
Children Of The Revolution - Remastered 2026 | Violent Femmes
Black Gold | Escape-ism
Shemesh | Shye Ben Tzur; Jonny Greenwood; The Rajasthan Express
Yeh Chand Koi Deewana Hai | Alka Yagnik; Kumar Sanu
Statue Down | Alex Cameron
Earth Alive | Avalon Emerson
You’re Here | Ms Ray
Not My Problem | Noga Erez
Hey, Hi | Noga Erez
Ride Lonesome | Beck
Tougher Than the Rest | Nation of Language
Bad Seeds | Saadi
The Good Life | Jessica Lea Mayfield; Dolour
Previous months: