If you came up on 2012-era Anjunabeats, ARTY’s name still does something to your nervous system, and Giving It Up is him reminding everyone why. This is the big, melodic progressive trance he helped define back then, updated just enough that it doesn’t sound like a time capsule. The vocal hook is enormous and openly emotional, the sort of topline engineered to be sung back by twenty thousand people with their hands in the air. ARTY has detoured into pop and lighter commercial stuff over the years, so there’s real pleasure in hearing him come home to the uplifting sound where he’s genuinely untouchable. The breakdown takes its time, lets the melody ache for a bit, then the drop arrives exactly on cue and does precisely what you were hoping it would. It’s unashamed festival-trance euphoria with no apology attached. Some of us never stopped wanting this feeling, and ARTY never forgot how to hand it over.
January
Chrome Daydream
Chrome stars, jelly hearts and holographic colour. A nod to the glossy, optimistic graphics of the early web.