Danny Howells GLOBAL UNDERGROUND #027: MIAMI (Global Underground)

Spatial relations play a big part in clubland, from the proximity of person to person and tweaker to speaker to the abstract connection we all have to a memorable place. The Global Underground series has celebrated these relationships for almost a decade, inviting internationally renowned DJ talents to personify their affections and affectations for a space through a studio-constructed mix. Now Global Underground has invited Great Britain’s Danny Howells — a veteran of Global Underground’s Nu_Breed and 24:7 series — to share his flirtation with Miami on this two-disc set.

Although to most of us, Miami means bright skies and sunny beaches, it can be bleary in terms of clubbing. This is never more apparent than during the dance-culture marathon known as the Winter Music Conference, which acted as Howells’s CD inspiration. South Beach is a gilded grid of indulgent refuges, and Howells’s breezy house mix doesn’t embody the grinding electro, big-room bounce or dark ’n’ driving progressive pump associated with the scene. With its funk-backed musing, the first, early-a.m.-themed CD is subtly swelling and dewy, even clement and hymnal on Mimosa’s "End of Me." Disc two is more undulating and filter-pocked, melody-beaded contributions from Tiga, Tiefschwarz, and Throbbing Gristle unfurling with humid resolution. Howells’s Miami isn’t as voluminous as the city, but its undercurrents are every bit as hypnotic.

(Danny Howells spins this Friday, April 15, at Avalon, 15 Lansdowne Street in Boston; call 617-262-2424.)