The Curator’s Crates: Five Collectives Building the Room Right

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The Curator's Crates on Data Transmission

VUCX & PEACEBLVCK

Each monthly installment of The Curator’s Crates on Data Transmission features a mix from a guest DJ or resident curator, pairing their personal listening tastes with their signature club sound to create a direct line to the voices and sounds defining what’s next for NYC nightlife.

Air Date: 14 June 2026
Genres: Electronic / Melodic House / Techno / Ambient / Experimental

VUCX and PEACEBLVCK excel at textural and hypnotic movements across the electronic music spectrum. They've crafted two distinct sets guaranteed to take listeners on a dark and cinematic journey.

VUCX

VUCX kicks off this episode with a haunting soundtrack of a recent dream. You'll experience VUCX's emotions as a beautiful, wholesome thing is overtaken and poisoned from within by a corrosive force. Even if you've never listened to or don't consider yourself a fan of ambient or experimental electronic music, you'd be doing yourself a disservice to not experience this set. It's a rare opportunity to experience someone else's emotions - from anticipation and happiness to dread and anger.

I approached my portion of the mix using the film and sound design appreciator part of my brain. I had a really vivid dream where I was dealing with seeing a person that this subconscious version of me thought could take something away from me that is bringing me a lot of joy, a sense of family, a sense of peace. In this non-reality, I, of course, spiral. I woke up and was really affected by the residual emotions left over from the dream so much so that I wanted to soundtrack it. I wanted to create a sonic world that reflected those feelings of loss, anger, and confusion. The headspace of this version of myself. - VUCX

PEACEBLVCK

PEACEBLVCK builds her sets the way she builds her productions, by utilizing hypnotic grooves and melodic structures that carry real emotional weight. Her recent release "Magia" works in deep textures and cinematic tension, and this mix draws from the same well: part current sound obsessions, part set-staples.

After VUCX's descent, PEACEBLVCK's mix is the climb back up. It's a steady upward motion that reveals a lot about the talented DJ and producer. There's a deeper thread here, and it isn't incidental: PEACEBLVCK is Greek, and the mix is quietly full of home. The melodic heart of the first act is almost entirely Greek. Kiki Botonaki is a Thessaloniki DJ and radio fixture. Serious Dancers are a Greek duo, and their remixers Ilias Katelanos & Plecta are the Athens-rooted pair at the center of the country's organic house wave. Add "Acropolis" to the run and the first act reads like a postcard home.

For listeners who enjoy melodic house and techno, PEACEBLVCK spends most of the 1-hour runtime proving taste and admitting love.

VUCX and PEACEBLVCK took listeners down very different paths, but both did what The Curator's Crates asks: share a part of yourself through music. While I spoke about them separately, I encourage listeners to listen all the way through the 2 hours as designed. In a world of club lineups centered around musical cohesion, these two sets are a welcome treat paired together.

This started as an informal list of NYC-based parties and collectives that I check in on when making the "After Dark Alerts" section of this newsletter. The names mentioned build high-quality events that also uplift members of their community.

My initial intention was to publish this as a standalone guide. However, once I wrote out 30 or so names, it was overwhelming to write, much less read. It will become a recurring part of "The Curator's Crates," not a static list. I will occasionally add larger round ups to the Backroom section of this publication to help the information land in a dedicated space, but this isn't intended to be an exhaustive list at any point. New people enter the scene and it's important to encourage and highlight new voices, especially those that uplift others.

You've seen many of these names in prior editions of The Curator's Crates. That is because a major reason I started .WAV Gallery was to shed some light and love on the best parts of the music scene.

The guiding principle of this list is that each party or collective must consistently and intentionally create opportunities for marginalized communities. This can include but is not limited to:

• Diverse lineups
• Mutual aid and/or fundraising for ethical causes
• A general mission statement and/or dance floor rules that encourage safe spaces and specifically prohibit discrimination
• Specific statements on their left-leaning political stances

Barrio Bounce

Collective Members: WILHELMINA (@wilhelminawilhelmina22), rogue.wav (@rogue.wav_), Castillonaire (@castillonaire), sebs (@sebsisthebest), DJ JOOG (@joogmac)

Mission: From NYC to Singapore, Melbourne, Manila, Tokyo, Fukuoka, Paris, and beyond, Barrio Bounce shares the joy of Budots and Southeast Asian (SEA) dance music across the globe.

Why they're great: They're a perfect example of talent guided by purpose. From attending their parties, you can tell that they value cultural connection just as much as the music.

Their core genre is Budots, a Filipino dance music genre that's become a global sensation, originating out of Davao. Barrio Bounce's programming sits it alongside a wider palette of Southeast Asian club music: Vinahouse, Dangdut, Funkot, and similar regional club styles that rarely get NYC dancefloor time.

Next event: Barrio Bounce just wrapped up their international tour yesterday (July 8, 2026)! We're looking forward to see what's coming next after the group returns home.

Club Massive

Members: Duriya (@duriya.rochdi), kstrobez (@kstrobez), OGD (@ogd.wav)

Mission: Club Massive is anti-techno by design. In a scene where techno is the default, they build room for queer, trans, and BIPOC DJs to spin jungle, Jersey club, and any other genre that moves the body differently than a four-on-the-floor build.

Why they're great: As a member of this collective, I have to declare my obvious bias. But it's less bias than fact: jungle barely gets a night in this city, and it almost never gets one in a queer room.

Next event: Club Massive returns to Happyfun Hideaway on Saturday, August 22nd for their monthly Happy Hour Breaks from 5 PM - 10 PM. Flyer & lineup coming soon.

If you want to get a sense of the vibes, you can listen to my first set with Club Massive here.

Lavender NYC

Mission: Lavender NYC is a roaming Sapphic speakeasy and soirée.

Why they're great: Each event is less "DJ set in a basement" and more a full sensory night out. There's dancing alongside burlesque, poetry, tarot, live performance, and art, built around community and connection rather than just a lineup. It reads as a more curated experience than an anonymous rager.

Next event: They just threw Un Corsage, their Pride edition. "The Sapphic prom you wish you'd had," pulled aesthetic references from 1980s and Y2K prom culture. We look forward to seeing what they do next!

Laylit

Members:  Saphe Shamoun (@saphe.shamoun), Nadim Maghzal (@nadim.maghzal), and @the.littlemerman

Mission: Laylit describes itself as a platform and collective built to celebrate music and artists from the Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) region and its diaspora.

Why they're great: They explicitly name inclusivity and unity across cultures, languages, dialects, religions, identity, and sexual orientation as a stated value. They build specifically around cultural/religious calendar moments including a NYC Eid party, which functioned as club space actively making room for observance rather than working around it.

They've had real staying power and reach. In seven years running, the party is now active in more than 10 cities across North America and Europe. The numbering on their parties is its own flex; by party #131 this past March, they'd built something that reads more like an institution than a party series. That kind of longevity in underground nightlife, especially for a scene built around a specific diaspora rather than a genre, is genuinely rare.

Together, this reads as a platform giving SWANA artists and audiences visibility and infrastructure they don't reliably get elsewhere in North American club culture.

Next event: Saturday, July 25, 2026 at Elsewhere in Brooklyn, doors at 9 PM, 21+, with tickets starting around $27.84 for the early entry window. It's worth noting that Elsewhere is layering its own safety infrastructure onto the night (an in-house Safety Monitor team and a zero-tolerance harassment policy).

OnlyFemmes

Founder: J.N.R. (@jessnellrob)

Many know her as a key presence in NYC’s club ecosystem with a deep commitment to uplifting femmes of all genders. She was also the focus of .WAV Gallery's first DJs with Day Jobs spotlight.

You can learn more about her musical evolution as well as her parallel career in tech here.

DJs with Day Jobs: J.N.R.

J.N.R. is a central figure in NYC’s club ecosystem and a committed advocate for femmes on the dancefloor. She’s also a software engineer. This is how those two worlds coexist.

.WAV GalleryOGD

Mission: OnlyFemmes organizes parties & community-building events that platform femme DJs of all genders. They promote inclusivity, embrace radical acceptance, build meaningful relationships, and provide opportunities for marginalized folks in the music industry.

Why they're great: On the genre side, OnlyFemmes leans distinctly toward the UK bass continuum rather than being a generic "women in dance music" collective. That clarification is important- bass music specifically has one of the worst gender gaps in dance music.

OnlyFemmes' work has been especially impactful within the historically male-dominated UKG scene where the femme-forward “Dub Sirens” series has become both a point of representation and a catalyst for change. One attendee once told J.N.R. that, as a gender-fluid femme, they had never felt fully comfortable in UKG spaces until attending one of her nights.

After attending many OnlyFemmes parties, I can say there isn't a more fun and freeing way to push back on one of the more stubbornly male-coded corners of the scene.

Next event: There's nothing currently on their calendar but they are supporting the Boycott Room Rave on Saturday, July 11th. More details on that in the "After Dark Alerts" section.

Every pick this issue traces back to the same root: bass music, pulled in different directions. WRLD works in melodic drum & bass, tonton's track is straight UKG, and Arya and Tipton's remix live further out on the bass-driven fringe with hyperpop, 140, Jersey club.

By Design - WRLD

"By Design" by WRLD is that very specific mid-2010s hands-in-the-air DnB that basically nobody makes anymore. It dropped in 2016 as the Dutch producer's ninth single for Monstercat. By then he'd established himself as one of the label's most reliable names for widescreen, festival-scaled drum & bass. It's melodic DnB at its most direct: soaring lead lines and a chorus-sized drop.

So Cold - ROOO (Galen Tipton Remix)

ROOO is a persona before it's a producer. It's the self-described "augmented projection" of a London artist, built to process social anxiety and identity through meticulous, dark electronic sound design. "So Cold" first appeared on ROOO's 2022 EP. For the 2023 remix EP ROOO Remixed, ROOO handed the original off to women and non-binary producers: Diessa, Jennifer Walton, and Galen Tipton. The idea was to put the track in the hands of people who'd faced the same uphill climb in a male-dominated industry.

Tipton is known for detailed, whimsical sound design, and that shows here. She pushes "So Cold" into stranger, more maximalist territory than the original. Genre-wise, this track is an amalgamation of hyperpop, Jersey club, electronica, and experimental music.

Calling All the Time - tonton

Brooklyn-based DJ and producer tonton's newest track "Bones" has been recieving a lot of love: Lot Radio support, an Apple Music editorial playlist, BBC Radio 1 play, rinses at clubs like Public Records and Elsewhere. It deserves all of that and more. But I can't help coming back to his 2025 release "Calling All the Time."

tonton got his start as a bass player in the NY scene, soaking up R&B, hip-hop, jazz, and dancehall before making the jump into garage. He's a founding member of popular collective Brooklyn Loves UKG and a regular at clubs like Elsewhere, Silo, Bossa Nova, and Brooklyn Monarch.

That background bleeds into the low end, giving "Calling All the Time" a texture most other UKG doesn't have. It dropped on Brooklyn Loves Records, the collective's home for UKG, DnB, and jungle, and has been a steady favorite on the party circuit ever since.

On Me - Arya

Arya's sound sits at the collision of 140, trap, and bass music, built on the kind of intricate, detail-heavy sound design that's earned him nods from RL Grime, Alison Wonderland, and Subtronics. "On Me" is built around turning emotional weight into genre-warping production: brooding low end, glitchy flourishes, drops that hit harder because of the fragility they build from.

To have your event featured, send an email or calendar invite to ogd@wavgallery.com including the flyer, description, and ticket link.

I'll only be recommending 5 upcoming events worth attending this weekend. I don't recommend this 4-day bender lightly, all of the below events are worth the minimal recuperation time in between.

There are other exciting recommendations to come when the next edition of The Curator's Crates drops in 2 weeks.

Rave Renaissance

Thursday, July 9th from 10 PM - 4 AM @ Pianos
Born in the early ‘80s with the boom of the Roland TR-808, electro is the futurist sound that drew on early hip hop and fed into techno. Characterized by syncopated drums, vocoder induced vocals, and a futuristic, sci fi heavy aesthetic of robots, space, and the future, often drawing on Afrofuturist roots.

The mother of many now popular genres, such as Miami bass and electroclash, electro is having a major resurgence and Rave Renaissance is drawing on that energy.

10-11 Y2AURA new
11-12 Lana Vese
12-2 Sophia Riv
2-4 Slutz

Club Melody: Body High

Friday, July 10th from 10 PM - 4 AM @ Mood Ring
Rumbling drums and corporeal bass drive you to move. Percussive rhythms lend you their energy. Atmosphere and playful melodies limbo you between the physical plane and the aether.

Club Melody, hosted by EMZ! and Wilhelmina, returns for BODY HIGH. This edition is headlined by LA's XQZ ME (@xqzmebeats), making a long-awaited NYC debut with vogue-inflected club sound run through techno, bass, and Latin roots. Support comes from new b2b duo CHARMED (@babeitspurr x @kcxcazz_), working sexy bass, dubstep, breaks, and jungle; Nishévitha (@paradoxicalpurpose), blending South Indian and Western classical foundations into genre-fluid sets; and Ovid (@ovidmusick), pulling from the Bristol hard drum lineage across UK funky, gqom, and dubstep. EMZ! and WILHELMINA close it out with their first b2b together.

Tickets

Book Club Radio: Florida Gas

Saturday, July 11th from 2PM @ Secret Location
The third and final chapter of the Florida trilogy. Two years ago: Florida Man, wandering into a Brooklyn backyard. Last year: Florida Woman, refusing to leave till the streetlights came on. This year, for the finale: a Florida gas station on 7/11 (the most Florida gas station day there is).

Tinzo, Jojo Lorenzo, Jubilee, and Dj Nico are on the decks, 2PM through sundown and into the night. House, dance, Miami bass.

Three years running, one of the summer's most-loved parties with great music, great outfits, and the best crowd.

Dress code: gas station uniform, bikini car wash, Florida tourist in full kit.

Boycott Room Rave

Saturday, July 11th from 7 PM - 4 AM @ 9-15 Wycoff Ave.
Come see the badass DJs who refused to play this year's genocide rave, and experience a transformative night for NYC nightlife culture!

This night is not only an expression of collective power, but crucially, a reclamation of nightlife’s core values – community, resistance, and great music.

Tickets

White Label Records

Test Pressings/ Plug Copies

This section is inspired by the history of white label vinyl records used as promotional copies by DJs. Record labels would often send DJs advance copies of releases to test out on crowds. In some cases, the records would even be mixed differently to sound better on club speakers. 

The hope is to spotlight new and exciting sounds that you are able to download and take with you - either for casual listening or to share in club settings.

Underscores - Music (OGD White Label Remix)

After sharing my remix of "Rich" by Cosmo Sheldrake last month, I have been living in Ableton. With each song, I've been getting closer to a sound of my own.

"Music" by underscores is one of my all-time favorite songs. At first, I hesitated to touch it because I honestly don't think it could be made better. Instead, I took a different approach: blending the original's electronic elements with organic, choral textures. It's not quite finished, but already achieves my main goal: combining my reverence for the original with the first real signs of my own style - a blend of hyperpop and breaks.

The final version is about a minute longer and much more impactful. The additional runtime allows listeners to sit in the high points while also including some unexpected surprises. I am so excited for you to listen it at the end of this month!

If you'd like to hear the rest of the white label releases for this project, you can find them here.

Sneak Preview: What's Next from OGD

The white label run is done. With these five test pressings, I've had five chances to find out what holds up on a dancefloor.

The lineup:

• Rich (Cosmo Sheldrake)
• Music (underscores)
• Activate My Heart (Natalia Kills)
• BUSSIT (Joey Valence & Brae)
• Kratos (Alex DeMirage)

I already know that "Kratos" and "Rich" will not be making it to the final project. Both remixes have such a special place in my heart. "Kratos" was the first track I produced, and playing it out at Book Club Radio was unforgettable. But this debut has a shape, and the earliest work doesn't sit at the same level as what came after it. I think "Rich" might end up as a great starting point for another project.

None of the five white label releases are disappearing. Both "Kratos" and "Rich" will stay on the Secret Stash release, for anyone who wants to hear where this started. In a few years, I might look back and find it embarrassing to have unfinished songs floating around. For now, I think it's a fun way to document the journey.

Confirmed for the final project (name still pending): polished versions of "Music," "Activate My Heart," and "BUSSIT". Two more remixes are still under wraps.

The rest gets revealed at the end of July.