The DJ mix CD isn’t quite gone yet, but it’s definitely on its last breath.

Once a defining format for electronic music, it now feels like a relic from another era—one that’s slowly finding its way into museums and memories. A few devoted series like DJ-Kicks are still hanging on, but for the most part, the world has moved on. Since the mid-2010s, online mixes have become the go-to for DJs, who can now avoid the red tape of licensing and marketing. The idea that the mix CD might disappear entirely has been looming for so long that even its obituaries feel outdated.

Enter Call Super’s stunning new project, A Rhythm Protects One—a release that revives the spirit of the mix CD and reminds listeners of its power to shape taste and expand imagination. Beyond its format and beautiful double-CD gatefold design, the album is accompanied by a zine that celebrates the rituals and routines of CD culture. In it, Call Super—the artist name of Joseph Seaton—reflects thoughtfully on what’s been gained and lost in today’s SoundCloud-driven world. That endless digital sprawl offers boundless access, but it also erases a sense of history and continuity. “Where are the hills to the flatlands?” they ask. The mix itself responds through “The Argosy,” a spoken-word piece from west Scotland that declares, “Noise convinces the future to forget.”

The fluid nature of the internet versus the permanence of the physical canon—that tension runs through the music of A Rhythm Protects One. On the opening track, “Blue Sun I,” fluttering clarinet and digital static feel like a conversation between the past and present of DJ culture. Yet the rest of the album radiates confidence. As a mix built entirely by Seaton under various aliases (Clam1, Louis Lupin, DJ Flowerdew), it channels the influence of legends like Ricardo Villalobos and his experimental classic fabric 36. (Seaton, notably, contributed their own entry to the fabric series as well.)

Both fabric 36 and A Rhythm Protects One share a kind of fluid minimalism where every click, crackle, and blip follows an internal rhythm that feels deliberate and alive. While Seaton’s sound leans denser and more textured than traditional minimal techno, it constantly threatens to burst beyond its boundaries. When “Lululu” transitions into “Limelight,” layers of percussion—door knocks, bells, robotic chatter—swell into a hypnotic rhythm. The result feels like a carnival of sound spinning into joyful chaos.

Over the past decade, electronic music has been more about refinement than revolution. Many artists seem stuck between honoring and recycling the past. While producers like Two Shell, Lanark Artefax, aya, and Proc Fiskal have pushed into hyper-digital realms, Seaton’s approach to clarity and precision feels more introspective. A Rhythm Protects One thrives on ambiguity—its ideas hover, circle, and evolve without fully settling. On “Milkways,” echoing piano chords drift unpredictably through a grounded, pulsing bassline, calling back to early-2000s figures like Thomas Melchior while still sounding entirely fresh.

Throughout the album, Seaton manages to sound both recognizable and mysterious. Their trademark blend of human warmth and mechanical texture surfaces again and again. On “Same Battles,” handclaps on what might be wood collide with manipulated vocals and strands of digital effects. These human-meets-machine gestures give the record its pulse, grounding it in a truth that’s both old and timeless: culture moves forward not just by creating new forms, but by understanding and reshaping the old ones.

That idea comes to life most vividly on the closer, “Mothertime.” The track feels like a lost Groove Chronicles classic reimagined for a new era—rich, emotional, and forward-looking. In the end, Call Super crafts an album that’s deeply engaged with club music’s history yet fully present in its moment, guided only by a sound that’s unmistakably their own.