Operating the ever excellent TYPE Records label, performing as Xela, and writing about music for a number of publications, Malden’s John Twells does it ALL! Very glad to to include him in out smorgasbord of Year Enders!!!!!!!!!!!

2016 was the trash fire that just kept burning, so what better way to block out the fumes than with fucking shows?

Here’s ten killer nights that polished the living shit out of a brass turd of a year.

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Non Event’s use of Boston’s brutalist City Hall has been revelatory, but few artists used the space quite as well as Caroline Park. Her industrial drones and processed field recordings filled the massive stone structure with dense clouds of noise. It was disorientating and beautiful.

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Beautiful Swimmers’ set at Boston house and techno outpost Make It New was like an early Christmas present for local crate diggers. The duo jumped fluidly from house to electro, disco, IDM and never missed a beat. Even more surprisingly, a crowd actually showed up as temperatures outside the Middlesex plummeted. It was big and it was clever.

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SXSW was a blast for a number of reasons, but the FACT showcase was a special one for me. Admittedly, I helped program it, but that’s really beside the point – I’ve programmed a lot of shitty shows. Sets from Rabit, Beat King and the Teklife crew have stuck with me for the whole year, but it was D∆WN’s headline set that really left me numb. It felt like seeing Janet Jackson in the back of a dive bar – D∆WN gave it everything and we all lapped it up.

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PVRPLE is Boston’s most reliable rap night – a monthly celebration of some of the best new music in the genre. On top of their reliable set of local DJs, they always manage to rope in enviable guests and the best of those this year was Big Tymer Mannie Fresh. There was so much love in the room you might have forgotten it was 2016.

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An outdoor show on a wet Sunday afternoon in Montreal? It wasn’t the ideal situation but this performance was proof that with the right tunes, it doesn’t matter that you’re cold and wet – you just get on with it. A blinding set of vintage techno and electro was finished off in the most unexpected way – with improvised live renditions of stone-cold Detroit classics. Memberberries were served, and they tasted fucking delicious.

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Anyone who’s managed to catch Isabella’s live all-hardware techno onslaught knows the deal. She’s one of the best live artists in Boston right now and has been going from strength to strength in 2016. This particular night was buoyed by the inclusion of my work colleague Chal Ravens who bossed out a set of admirably ear-jumbling house and techno. While some of us (me) were content to get wasted and clang Bangerz-era Miley Cyrus, Chal and Isabella thankfully managed to rise above.

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This was a weird night. After almost not getting let back into Good Life, I caught Batu’s sublime, transformative set before grabbing an impromptu ride home, breaking down half way and having Dominos Pizza on the hood of the car while waiting for AAA. It was all worth it.

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Full disclosure – I am involved with DRAW, but this set was too good to miss off the list. Anyone who grew up in England’s Midlands in the ‘90s and ‘00s should have a soft spot for garage and bassline and Murlo took me right back home here. I didn’t want it to stop.

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Steve Hauschildt’s Strands was one of my favorite albums of the year and it was just as good live, filling the room with billowing clouds of synth and the subtlest rhythms. All that was missing was bean bags and neon lights.

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When I walked into Middlesex, Sprinkles was playing Carl Craig’s remix of Maurizio’s ‘Domina’. It lasted for almost half an hour. In five hours, she played about ten tracks and it was sublime.