Playlist of the Week: Butch
Butch
These are tracks I’ve played a lot over the last 12 months. Some of them are my own productions, and those were my secret weapons until they got released. The other tracks belong to other people whose music I respect and rely on in my sets. They’ve all survived heavy club testing, which is the only metric that really matters to me.
Because I’m incredibly beautiful and love myself deeply, I decided to talk a bit more extensively about my own tracks here. Butch loves you! My productions over the last year have been about staying versatile and not getting trapped in one sound. I still enjoy testing strange ideas at peak time, pushing grooves into uncomfortable corners, and then watching a room figure it out together.
So, there’s some groovy house, disco, but also trippy moments, breakbeats, and a few tunes that are unconventional. That tension between function and weirdness is what keeps me interested. These tracks are a snapshot of where my head has been musically – what I’ve trusted in the booth and what I’ve built in the studio.
I made this in 2025, and it quickly turned into another one of those standout records in my sets. There are car engine motor sounds that push the whole track forward – it has this constant drive. It’s some kind of weird, but in a way that works really well on the floor. DJ Tennis heard it early and signed it straight away for Life And Death. I love records that don’t behave perfectly but still hit hard. This is one of them, and it’s been a big moment in my sets.
I was super excited when this remix request came in. Armand van Helden, one part of Duck Sauce, is one of the reasons I became a DJ and producer. His records in the '90s completely hooked me and made me want to do the same. So, working on this remix felt like a proper full-circle moment.
The original had something great inside it, but felt a bit loose to me. I immediately had one specific sample in my head that I always wanted to use, but it never fit so far. Once I dropped it in, everything clicked. I produced this remix in just a few hours. It turned into one of the biggest house tracks in 2025 and got played pretty much everywhere. It’s fun, direct, and it still carries that connection back to the music that made me fall in love with club culture in the first place.
Another 2025 Butch production, and it instantly became one of those special, standout peak-time tracks in my sets. It’s built around North African samples. This isn’t just a track. It’s a dance floor documentary about interstellar North African visitors, armed with vintage lasers and only the best intentions. This one was supported by pretty much everyone from Dixon to Annie Mac and Gerd Janson, from Keinemusik to Jamie Jones to Marcel Dettmann. Pete Tong played it a few times on his radio show. The reaction in clubs has been huge. This track proves that I still love testing strange ideas at peak time.
By the way, this one came out on my very own label, Finicky, which will get more focus this year! We have some hot stuff coming here – and for the first time, not only from me, but we are also signing tracks now!
* This track is unavailable in North American territories on Beatport. Check it out on YouTube.
This was originally the B-side of my latest EP on Gerd Janson’s Running Back imprint. "Glory Night" was actually the title track, but somehow "Just Chill" ended up becoming the more successful track. That happens sometimes – the tune you think is the side story takes over. I tried to push a modern version of house and disco here, something that feels classic but still current. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.
This was one of the tracks from my very first release on Permanent Vacation, released in the last months of 2025. Permanent Vacation was a label I always liked, so I was happy to finally land there. Fun fact: "Schlecker" is German and translates to "Licker" – don’t ask… It’s a trippy track and definitely not for everyone. For me, this one is super cool!
This was the title track of my EP on Permanent Vacation. Completely different from "Schlecker," but cool in its own way. It’s playful, full of little shifts, breakbeats and indie-dance touches, and it was just a lot of fun to make. I really enjoy being versatile in my productions. I never want to sit in just one sound or one lane. Electronic music is too wide for that. Different styles, different moods, different worlds – that’s what keeps it interesting for me.
This is the title track of my Glory Night EP on Running Back. It’s the label of Gerd Janson, who’s a longtime friend and a big inspiration to me and Running Back is one of those places where it always feels special to release music.
With "Glory Night," I basically allowed myself to go full modern disco. It’s shiny, glamorous and pure disco-ball energy. It sounds like a classic record that never existed, but somehow everyone already knows. Pete Tong said about it, “Sometimes you just need a bit of glory!”
This was my return to Nic Fanciulli’s Saved Records in December 2025. I stumbled across a video of C.P. Lacey, a legendary Apollo Theatre performer from New York known for his surreal and spot-on Michael Jackson impersonations. The energy, the flair, the absolute dedication – I loved all of it. That moment stuck with me and ended up becoming the core inspiration for this track. Michael Jackson forever!
Cocoon is a label I’ve been connected to for a long time. Growing up around Frankfurt meant growing up with Sven Väth and the whole Cocoon universe. It was everywhere and shaped a lot of my early understanding of club culture. Cocoon was legendary back then and still is now. I’d already released there before, so when I got asked to contribute to their 25th anniversary compilation, I wanted to make something that felt purely Cocoon in spirit. It sits somewhere between techno and house, super trippy and not exactly conventional, but it still works on a dancefloor. For me, that’s what a happy birthday to Cocoon sounds like.
I sampled Freedom Force's "What I Feel" from 1980 for this one. As far as I know, it had never been sampled before. It wasn’t a big record back then, pretty rare and low on copies, almost unknown. That made it a perfect source material for me.
Some people connected "Get High With You" to Chaka Khan’s "Fate," which came out in 1981 and later became the main sample for Stardust’s "Music Sounds Better With You." There are obvious similarities in the feel, but it’s a different record. My sample is older, so it definitely has nothing to do with it. Life On Planets added the vocals and pushed it into a proper song.
