Eelke Kleijn - Answer Every Question

How is Eelke Kleijn still this underrated outside the melodic-house world? “Answer Every Question” is him doing what he’s done brilliantly for years, long, cinematic, emotional dance music that takes its time and rewards the patience you give it. Calling it trance undersells the thing entirely. This is melodic house with a storyteller’s sense of pacing, a track that builds across seven minutes toward a payoff most producers would sprint to inside ninety seconds. The lead melody is genuinely gorgeous, wistful without ever tipping into cheese, and the low end is warm and round instead of aggressive, more of a pulse you feel in your chest than a punch. Kleijn made one of my favourite electronic tracks of the last decade with “Stormy Weather,” and this sits comfortably in that lineage. There’s a breakdown about two-thirds through that strips everything back to a single held chord and a faint field-recording hiss, letting the tension hang until it’s almost too much, and then the melody comes flooding back. It gave me actual chills on laptop speakers, which is emphatically not where this music is meant to land. Put it on a real system in a dark room at 2am and I suspect it would take the top of your head off. One of the best things I’ve heard all month, and I’ve heard a lot this month.

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