About

For Sofia Kourtesis, joy is a living practice. It runs through her stage presence, her productions, and the emotional energy that has defined her work—from her 2023 debut album Madres to her 2025 EP Volver. The Peruvian DJ and producer has built a vibrant international career, taking her from Lima to Berlin and to some of the world’s most celebrated clubs and festivals.

Her debut DJ-Kicks mix brings together the same emotional richness that has made her connect so deeply with listeners. Compiled during a period of profound personal loss, the mix took shape as Kourtesis navigated grief after the death of her mother. Returning to Peru became an important source of closeness, healing and reconnection, and music gradually returned to her as a source of strength.

The result is a chameleonic journey through the moods, sounds and emotions that shaped her inner world during that time. Moving fluidly across the electronic spectrum, the mix balances dancefloor energy with moments of introspection, reflecting Kourtesis’ belief that the best DJ sets are not about display but about taking listeners on a journey full of movement, tension and surprise.

Deeply personal and full of feeling, Sofia Kourtesis’ DJ-Kicks is a heartfelt offering of love, gratitude and emotional release. Bringing together highs, lows, warmth and unexpected turns, the mix captures the instinctive way she thinks behind the decks — letting different worlds collide, overlap and come alive. — (via Label)

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In her contribution to the long-running mix series, the Peruvian-born, Berlin-based DJ assembles a wide-ranging set of emotive house music that illustrates her ethos of “less perfection, more corazón.”

Sofia Kourtesis knew she was in love with Berlin after running into her dentist in the darkroom at Berghain. Out clubbing the night before she was scheduled to get her wisdom tooth removed, she spotted a naked man and realized he was the same one who would be cutting into her mouth a few hours hence. “What are you doing here?” she asked him. He waved off her bewilderment: “Well, this is Berlin, darling.” The procedure the next day went fine, and she knew she was home. “This could never happen in Peru,” she said.

Berlin has been Kourtesis’ home since she moved from Lima at 17 to study film. She’s said she has a Latin heart with a German motor, evoking Germany’s world-renowned automotive industry as well as the four-on-the-floor beats of the capital’s techno scene. As she came of age musically, the tension between the two places came to define her art. She struggled with the loss of her father and her mother’s illness, pouring those emotions into records like Fresia Magdalena and Madres. She wove samples of her father’s voice into nostalgic evocations of their time together, and paid tribute to the surgeon who extended her mother’s life with a house banger named in his honor—and an invitation to go clubbing at Berghain. (“He really loved it,” she said.)

Kourtesis applies a similarly nostalgic lens to her entry into Berlin label !K7’s DJ-Kicks series. The mix offers a road map through the sphere of influence that has shaped her perspective as a musician and DJ, gathering recent hits and new exclusives from friends and contemporaries along with four new originals. The scope reflects Berlin’s international influences, featuring artists from across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and toys with ambient IDM, Detroit techno, French touch, Afro-Peruvian rhythms, and various flavors of house music.

 Kourtesis considers herself a “frustrated filmmaker,” and it’s not hard to hear the soundtrack to her own biopic in her mix; the swelling crescendo that opens her new version of Jon Hopkins’ “Home Station” feels intentionally cinematic. Dawning with the optimism of a young queer girl fleeing the Catholic oppression of her hometown for the unbridled hedonism of her new one, the mix drops her newest tracks in between waves of euphoric 4/4 thumps, swirls of off-kilter syncopation, and blissed-out chords.

The tracks she’s assembled reflect her ethos of “less perfection, more corazón”: Each selection seems to highlight artists that embrace imperfections, either in rhythm, texture, or structure. Her mix of Avalon Emerson’s “One More Fluorescent Rush” into Logic1000’s “Her” plays their contrasting approaches off one another, gently blunting Emerson’s relentless, mutating synthesizer groove as it gives way to Logic1000’s Tresor-coded 8-bit synth melody. A mid-mix run from Axel Boman’s “Rock Top” to UK duo JOY (Anonymous)’ “JOY (Look Up Now)” is stitched together by her new track “Texas Changing,” a sun-drenched 4/4 thumper with a garbled vocal sample that sounds filtered through analog tape, transforming it from a merely soulful performance into something that feels more like found footage. The effect evokes her track “WinWin San,” a highlight of the 2018 compilation Studio Barnhus Volym 1 that turned heads even alongside chameleonic virtuosos like DJ Koze.

Kourtesis’ ear for texture and immersive sensibilities are well suited to the DJ-Kicks format, which favors channeling emotion and building tension. The inevitable release comes with her final original track, “Los Poemas No Siempre Riman” (“Poems Don’t Always Rhyme”), a collaboration with the Afro-Peruvian group Novalima. For an artist that has spent much of her career braiding the affections and mortality of her loved ones with her journey as an artist, her lyrics here feel like a mantra, a reminder from the ancestors that “Al final lo que importa/Si amaste lo que viviste” (“In the end, what matters [is] if you loved what you lived”). Kourtesis’ DJ-Kicks mix feels like proof that she has: It’s a lovingly guided nostalgia trip through the vast spectrum of personalities and perspectives that lured her from Lima into the dark, damp corners in Berlin where she found the freedom she was seeking. — (via Pitchfork)

Vinyl tracklist:
A1    Jon Hopkins –    Home Station (DJ-Kicks Version)
A2    Sofia Kourtesis, Novalima –    Los Poemas No Siempre Riman
A3    Laurence Guy –    Make Me Feel Better
A4    Sedef Adasi –    Mermaids On Acid
B1    △▃△▓ –    ؞ৢ؞ؖ؞ৢ؞ؖ؞ৢ؞ؖ؞ৢ؞ؖ؞ৢ؞ؖ؞ৢ؞ؖ؞ৢ؞ؖ؞ৢ؞ؖ؞ৢ؞ؖ؞ৢ؞ؖ؞ৢ؞ؖ؞ৢ؞ؖ؞ৢ؞ؖ
B2    Sofia Kourtesis –    A Brief Look In Your Eyes
B3    Dave DK –    Lagoon 69
B4    Aphex Twin –    Flim
C1    Sofia Kourtesis –    Texas Changing
C2    DJ GTi –    Santa Teresa
C3    Myd –    You're A Star
D1    Axel Boman –    Rock Top
D2    Sofia Kourtesis –    It's You
D3    Joy Anonymous –    Joy (Look Up Now)

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Label: !K7 Records
Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, Compilation
Released: 2026
Genre: Electronic
Style: House

File under: Electronic // Club Mix Compilations
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