ARTY - Love To Forget

There’s a synth arp in the first thirty seconds of Love To Forget that I would recognise as ARTY with my eyes shut, that liquid, faintly melancholy pluck he’s been refining since his Anjunabeats days. This is him back in melodic-trance mode after years of chasing the American festival-pop dollar, and the homecoming suits him. The track is built around a vocal about wanting to forget someone, about as on-the-nose as the title promises, and ARTY’s production is emotional enough to sell it regardless. The drop is restrained by big-room standards, more of a lift than an explosion, riding that arpeggio up into a wide-open chorus. The melodic detail has always been his real strength, and Love To Forget leans hard into it, letting the little counter-melodies carry the weight. It takes me back to the era when Anjunabeats releases genuinely felt like events, before the sound got flattened into a hundred soundalikes. I don’t reach for trance much these days, and this snuck onto three separate playlists this week. Genuinely glad he came home to this sound.

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