Introducing Mix of the Year Winner – Wittak

When a DJ wins our Mix of the Month competition in December and then goes on to claim 2025 Mix of the Year in the public vote barely a week or two later, you know something exceptional has landed. Wittak’s submission wasn’t just technically accomplished or genre-savvy (though it’s both of those things), it was the kind of set that reminds you why we started this magazine in the first place: to champion the DJs who refuse to play it safe, who treat the decks as an instrument rather than a playlist delivery system, and who understand that real innovation often lives in the spaces between genres rather than within them.

What makes Wittak’s approach so compelling is the depth of experience underpinning every transition. With three decades in the underground scene, including residencies supporting the likes of Luke Slater and James Holroyd back in the mid-90s, he’s developed a sound that’s both instinctively musical and technically forensic. His winning mix traverses house, broken beat, breaks, electro, jungle, 2-step and dub with the kind of effortless fluidity that only comes from genuinely knowing your craft. Holding a sweet spot around 135-140 BPM, he layers syncopated rhythms and bass weight with a clarity that draws as much from Mala’s dubbed-out sensibilities as it does from the controlled chaos of Aphex Twin and Squarepusher.

Given that Wittak managed to win twice in such quick succession, we decided to bypass the standard winner’s profile and go deep with a proper interview. What follows is a conversation about three decades navigating the UK’s underground, the technical choices that define his sound, and why returning to the decks in 2017 after years away only sharpened his edge. Consider this your introduction to a DJ who’s been quietly refining his approach whilst the rest of the scene chased trends.

Can you talk us through how you approached putting this particular mix together? What was the concept or narrative you wanted to explore?

From a conceptual or narrative perspective, my design is always aiming for a coherent journey through everything I’ve picked up or become exposed to since I last had the pleasure to play before an audience. For all of the mixes that I’ve submitted this year, they’ve all been studio recordings of sets that I’ve played out live a few days before. The December mix was the merging and evolution of three nights across three weeks back home: Random Rhythms, Natural Selections, and Dead Centre. Each has slightly different guardrails and/or visions. The first, run by a new friend of mine Dave Johnson, is more old school, breakbeat and rave; the second, run by an old friend and vinyl purist (hence the club night name), Dave ‘Reg’ Williams, who I started putting on nights with back in the 90s, is more house/deep house focused; whilst the third, run by Rob ‘Innerkey Griffiths, is a bit more anything goes.

Given that I had later set times for each of the nights, I wanted that same eclectic mix of mine which is typical taking the listener through dub, breaks, electro, broken beat, jazz, rave, and old school, with some more four-four than I usually play – I felt like I needed more of that energy in the middle and back end. 

I always try and build multiple arcs through my mixes. Rather than what I used to do when I first started out, I don’t just have one arc which builds and smoothes a little or builds and plateaus, I usually have three, four or even five sections in a whole hour – I average around 20-25 tunes. I want to create something unexpected and challenging both for the listener and me as a performer.

I also had one or two tunes that I wanted to bring in which had challenging rhythms, melodies or tempos that, on the face of it, seemed unmixable or, at least, mixable though not particularly seamlessly – like the Nikki Nair – Cheese Interface tune. The Avery – Drone Logic one was another that I really wanted to bring into a set though is really slow at around 115 BPM so that took some playing around with to find something that sat in it well. 

I’ve been thinking more about crossing 303 acid lines with the sort of dub-steppy/bass house I really like too – along the lines of Om Unit’s Acid Lab stuff. I don’t think I’ve quite got there much with this mix yet but it’s definitely on the journey to it. There are one or two sections that touch upon that juxtaposition.

This is my usual approach – trying to subvert genre, cross-pollinate stuff, and avoid being pigeon-holed!

In summary I wanted something bold, feisty, a bit hypnotic, foot-shuffly and stompy, and atmospheric. I wanted sort of ever increasing circles – if that doesn’t sound too pretentious. Sort of like an elliptical orbit that gets wider on each revolution! 

You mention treating the mixer as an instrument, creating those long, seamless blends and intricate transitions. When you’re collating tracks for a mix like this, is there a specific process or ritual you follow? Do you start with a core selection and build outwards, or is it about finding unexpected connections between records as you dig?

It’s a bit of both. I usually have a crate of tunes backing up that I am desperate to play out and hear on a club system. You could say that forms the core. This crate is perpetually there and I add to it constantly. Something might pop into my head that I haven’t heard for a while or I hear something new in someone else’s mix that blows me away and I drop it in the crate. Then, yes, I’ll build from there.

I’m always looking for long blends of new cuts with classic tunes – I did a Higher States x Special Request blend a year or so back which I was really chuffed with. When I found something that sat perfectly with Drone Logic I could have exploded – it was so nice to drop live!

Something with a long leader or lead out to it, is usually a trigger to try a blend into or out of it. That will then draw me down the path of how I’m going to introduce a track in or take the last one out and how best to do that with the tools in front of me – is it with EQ cut, boost or isolation? is it an echo, reverb, phaser, gate? Is it a loop? etc etc

This is the bit that I really love these days and the mixers with weighty DSPs really bring that extra dimension to the table. I remember when I first started just trying to get through a set beat matching, then when I got that, I wanted to go a bit Jeff Mills/Carl Cox and bring another deck or two in. But having the ability to loop and play with the tonal quality of a section like you’re in the studio is something else – and the buzz you get when it works live..  layering vocals or stabs in a reverb plate, gating something in a breakdown, or phasing to a drop … when you see how you can move the limbs on the dancers’ bodies or expressions on faces… that’s what it’s all about! Exactly like playing a musical instrument.

Thirty years in the scene means you’ve witnessed enormous shifts in how music is discovered and consumed. Where are you finding the tracks that end up in your sets these days?

Anywhere and everywhere. I mean it is just everywhere these days isn’t it. It used to be just tapes being passed around, in a car or back at someone’s house when not actually out at a party but these days it will be everywhere.

I need to get off Spots if I’m honest – I won’t get into a political and commercial rant but you know what I’m getting at here – but the algorithm, once you curate your listening, isn’t all that bad. Shazamming when I’m out or listening to sets on the radio – I’m almost permanently locked in to Rinse FM. My Soundcloud feed is curated to the nth degree as is my Bandcamp feed – I always follow/like the labels and that’s like it always used to be back in the good old days of pure analog crate digging, always sends you down rabbit holes. I’ve started to get a few unreleased tracks through friends of friends. Mary Anne Hobbs is always a go to on 6 Music. Giles. Then references from friends. My girlfriend, Emma, is a big digger too and she’ll always share, play and recommend stuff. I’ve got to give her a shout as craftng the shape of the top of this set and introducing something more four-four and bouncy in the latter half for the time of night I was playing this set out was in counsel with her. I had another friend back in the uni days (Martin) who used to be very similar – a bit too shy to mix though loved dancing in a DJ booth. He would be there picking out tunes and passing them to me to throw in next. I love those people and that’s why they’re still in my life!

It could also be adverts, passing cars, but you know, music never dies and I love finding old tunes that I’ve never heard before and working out how to carve a space for them in a mix.

I think I speak for most of us when I say that I have a tortured relationship with the whole analog vs digital debate. Of course I’d love to have physical copies of everything I’ve discovered or love but there is just too much good music, too many years, too many strands. It’s just too impractical and crazily expensive these days to maintain that. I stopped buying vinyl in the late 90s/early 2000s because I couldn’t eat wax or pay my bills with it. I was a bit like a recovering addict prior to me restarting about 8 or 9 years ago. I was living in London at the time and the whole UK Jazz thing was about to explode. I’d be going to small venues seeing the likes of Nubya Garcia, Joe Armon-Jones, Ezra Collective, Shabaka Hutchings and Sons of Kemet, Makaya McCraven, Richard Spaven do magical things a couple of feet in front of me and it sucked me back in. The merch stands were carrying vinyl and the music was too good to not take a piece of it home with me and pay additional thanks back to the artists. But it must have taken me a year before I broke – I knew it would be a habit I’d have to consciously manage. The first piece of wax I bought which made me fall off the wagon in 2017 was Yussef Kamaal – Black Focus. I must have spent a good few grand in those first few years buying again – I’ve got to thank another friend, Anna, for that! Over the past few years though I’ve got stricter and wax purchases are for collectors items – things I’ve been chasing most of my life or artists I really revere and I guess, in a way, know they are that special that that investment is like investing in a Basquat, Klimt or Da Vinci or something!

The relationship with music and art generally is hugely important and I’ve tried to bring my daughter, Luciana, up with this in mind. When everything was purely physical and tangible it felt appreciated and respected more didn’t it? Music releases weren’t just about the music – it was the whole experience, the artwork, the sleeve notes, the story, the whole package. 

Needless to say, if I’m going to play it, I’m going to pay for it. So with the exception of unreleased tracks, nothing is ripped and I always give something back to the massively talented folks who make all this amazing stuff for us.

Your sound sits comfortably around 135 to 140 BPM but incorporates everything from house and broken beat to jungle, 2-step, and dub. How do you decide what fits and what doesn’t when you’re programming a mix? Is it purely instinctive after three decades, or are there specific elements you’re listening for?

It’s energy and twists and turns that I’m looking for. 

When I go through my sifts – I usually have about three passes on average to whittle a set down, this is why I don’t feel I could do a regular radio thing or anything! – I wouldn’t have the time for that workflow around a day job! I just try stuff out. A similar sound or rhythm is usually the catalyst to try and put two tunes together or it could be complimentary vocals, melody or rhythm lines. I’m looking for those pearls where I find a call in one track and a response in another. When I’ve found that, it’s in.

I start off with an idea of an opener and I follow the breadcrumbs to see where it leads me. Sometimes I’ll want to open with a statement… for example I’ve opened with Mala – Anti War Dub once or twice – that sets the scene, tempo and message perfectly. Other times I might just follow track titles or artist names to string a subversive message together in a twee sort of way!

Given that you’re resident at both Natural Selections and Lovedrop Festival, how does programming a mix for Decoded’s global audience differ from preparing for a club night or festival set?

Not much if I’m honest. I usually find if it works, it works. 

Personally, I’m always trying to tell a story and craft a journey. I’m playing with energy, tangents, surprises, moods. It doesn’t really matter when or where you’re listening to stuff in my opinion – when you grab the listener or dancer with something, they’re in for the ride.

I’ve kept to the sounds that I love and my approach to storytelling. I submitted my first mix to Decoded in August of this year. If I’m honest, I didn’t know too much about the mag or the community. I’ve since listened to lots of fantastic submissions and I’ve found it leans mostly to progressive house which I used to love by the way – when I first started regularly clubbing, the club in the town where I lived in the UK, Derby, was Renaissance with of course Seaman, Sasha, Digweed, etc as regulars there. As lovely as that music is, it doesn’t change enough for me throughout a set so I make sure that mine does.

As I said before, my submissions have been studio recordings of my most recent outings so what you’re getting from me is what you get when I play out.

You cite Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, and Mala as influences, which spans experimental electronica through to dubstep’s more meditative spaces. How do those quite different sonic approaches inform your own work?

Change, free form, unpredictability, bass, mood. In as few words as I can.

Certainly with the first two, I’ve recently started calling them out as the jazz masters of electronic music. Tom Jenkinson of course is a outstanding musician, Aphex a genius producer. With Mala, it’s how he controls bass. Across all three of them, what is consistent for me is crossing genres, trying it out and seeing what you come out with. The attention to detail that each of them approach their music. These things are the big takeaways for me. That’s what I try and bring into my sets.

Beyond the artists you’ve mentioned, are there particular labels or collectives whose output consistently aligns with your vision?

Wow, too many to mention. I’d say Warp, AD93, Houndstooth, Astrophonica, Deep Medi, Pineapple, Yam, Aquarii … there’s a few to keep you going but, like I said before, there’s too much good music out there… we’d be here for days.

You took a hiatus to focus on engineering, production, and journalism before returning in 2017. How did that time away, and those different perspectives on music, influence your approach when you came back to DJing?

So yeah, I had to get a career and earn some money. I wasn’t a very good musician or DJ tbh. 

Turn of the millenium I needed to do a bit of soul searching. First thing I had to do was get a degree – for my own ego. So I got the sound engineering thing. Did a bunch of various sound bits and pieces: radio, film, studio engineering, live sound, teaching it … anything with a mic, cables, instruments, and desk basically. I loved music and sound but it was never going to put food on the table. 

In the end I went travelling and when I came back I got a corporate job, got a masters and started a family (which was my biggest distraction!) but I always stayed close to music in some way. When I was working in London in IT, I found I could stumble across three or four decent nights every week in some small place in Dalston or New Cross or somewhere for a few quid a pop so I just got sucked into that. As I wasn’t doing anything musically myself at the time – didn’t have the time or resources, I needed an outlet. So I started writing about the gigs I was going to. Telling stories. Playing with words to bring a reader into the moment analogous to finding sounds to bring a listener/dancer into the story, no?

Perhaps ‘soul searching’ is how I might answer that question in a word or two. I guess the time away underscored for me ‘the search’. Finding new and obscure things – avoiding the formulaic and conventional, seeking the challenge. And ultimately, painting that picture, crafting that journey and retelling it.

Looking at the competition specifically, what made you decide to enter?

Good question. I guess feedback initially and networking most recently. Feedback to see how the mixes went down for a listener not in a club. And also to force me to pay more attention to how I mixed. I’d say its definitely made me up my game – obviously in tandem with wanting to get it right on the night of course. I wanted to know whether my approach resonated I guess. As I said before, I didn’t know too much about the mag before I entered – for some reason, back in the summer, the competition just popped up on my feed. I’d recorded a few mixes I was proud of recently and spent a lot of time over and thought, why not.

During the first month of submissions, I obviously started listening to as much as I could that was being submitted – and here’s another source of music in answer to your previous question – to discover new music from the other DJs and also to hear how others were mixing. Listening back through all the other mixes of the months from 2026, there are no more than a handful of tunes I’ve come across before so I’ve discovered so much just throwing my hat in the ring for this. Shouts to Molotov, Pwnda and Richard Q really loved their mixes… Alan too … all of them really, so hard to pick from across all of the months – it would be good to do a DJ only poll for mix of the year btw!

So then, latterly, I’ve just started obviously liking the ones that have really moved me and following the DJs that created them too. You’ve got a nice little community you’ve built there.

And I guess that’s one thing I haven’t been able to touch upon in all these questions so will offer it up now. As important as the art is as I mentioned before, the other thing is community. 

Art – music especially – and community go hand in hand for me. That’s what makes it special. The memories it creates and journeys it sends you on. Creating mixes is all about revisiting those memories for me and sharing. When you find a way to do it well, and those stories resonate with others, that’s when you start to build something special. That’s what all the artists, labels, nights that I’ve mentioned in this interview have done and continue to do.

I’ve found it getting back in to performing in my home region in the north of England in Shropshire. Where I play out most in Shrewsbury, there’s loads of great crews and collectives at the moment.. in addition to the three or four above you’ve got Baz and Mark doing Traffic and Teknik (tho I think they might be cooking something new up shhh), Gaz and Sash doing Sublime Riot, Dubz with the Onward stuff, Sonny Woods and Kez who ran the Planet of the Breaks nights that brought the likes of Scratch Perverts, Plump DJs, Grandmaster Flash etc into the Shires, Mark 2kilos .. There’s loads of parties and that’s before you even get out into the real farmland and Wales! Then all of these crews come together at the handful of festivals that have sprung up: Heal, Loopfest, and the one I’ve mainly been frequenting over the past few years run by the lovely Alex and Rich, Lovedrop and, I have to say, it is what it says on the tin: a drop of Love for 3 or 4 days!

I’m very soon going to be moving up to Manchester and hopefully I can create something new with some like-minded folk up there too…

For producers and DJs who’ll be entering the 2026 competition, what advice would you give them? What do you think makes a mix stand out when there are hundreds of submissions?

I think just be yourself. Find a way to tell a story. Listen to how others do it. Learn your tools well – it doesn’t matter what you’re using analog, digital, decks, controllers. But learn them and find ways to be unique. Reflect on what moves you and share that with us.

Follow Wittak via SoundCloud and Instagram

The Decoded Magazine Mix of the Month DJ Competition runs every month. Submission entries open on the 1st and close on the 20th of each month. For more information, head here.

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