Following a strong run of 2025 releases from label leader deadmau5, BlackGummy, Becking, Screamarts, Skellytn, and Lamorn, mau5trap charges into 2026 with the first of two discs for the twelfth installment of its long-running compilation series ‘We Are Friends Vol. 12’. The collection’s focus track “1 of My Kind” comes from The XTTC, an anonymous collaboration between an electronic music producer and DJ and a visual artist with roots in comics and large-scale concert visuals. Built around the fantasy lives of three masked vigilante characters, X, Ruby Knives, and Lil C, who exist to disrupt symbols of power and inject chaos into systems thriving on obedience, the project presents cinematic storytelling soundtracked by driving electro, seductive vocals, and dark-room energy. The XTTC chooses anonymity as resistance in a time when identity gets scraped, tracked, packaged, and fed into algorithms designed to predict and control behavior, creating space for rebellion, contradiction, and freedom to exist without consequence.
The 15-track disc one also features singles “Supersonic Electronic (on acid)” from Italy’s Ciauru, packed with tribal rhythms and precision-engineered bleeps, and the featured remix “Strobe” (&friends, Moeaike Retake). For the sole remix on disc one, mau5trap tapped emerging artists &friends and Moeaike for a fresh retake on the deadmau5 classic. &friends continues to solidify his place as one of the most intentional voices in global electronic music following breakout singles “Temptation” featuring Bipolar Sunshine and “Jackie B,” while Italian duo Moeaike, known for their 2024 breakout hit “Mala Fama,” join a prestigious lineage of artists including Layton Giordani, Dimension, and Lane 8 who have officially remixed “Strobe.” Since 2012, the We Are Friends series has served as a launchpad for emerging talent, introducing the world to artists such as REZZ, i_o, ATTLAS, BlackGummy, and No Mana. Over a decade since its formation, mau5trap has become a bastion for trailblazing, genre-defying artists, with Mixmag readers voting it among the Top 50 Labels of the Decade, placing it in the Top 10.
‘We Are Friends Vol. 12’ (Disc 1) Tracklist:
Ciauru – “Supersonic Electronic (on acid)”
Avis Vox – “Hide!”
The XTTC – “1 of My Kind”
Meyer, imallryt – “Control”
Hreez – “Turn The Place Down”
Micha Mendel – “Ya Aeny”
Quantaloop – “Fractured Mirror”
ELAC – “Sub Terra”
Me & You – “Acid Love”
Liudicrious – “Restless”
robinrabauke – “BLP”
Penultimate – “Listen”
Sysdemes – “KNAVE”
infinikid – “Refracture”
deadmau5, &friends, Moeaike – “Strobe” (&friends, Moeaike Retake)