Eelke Kleijn x Layla Benitez feat. Leo Wood - Beg You

That descending piano figure opening Beg You does an unreasonable amount of emotional lifting before a single drum arrives. Eelke Kleijn has been one of the more reliably classy names in melodic house for years, and teaming with Layla Benitez plus Leo Wood’s vocal gives this a proper song at its center instead of just a groove with a sample dropped on top. It builds slow, the way the good melodic house always does; the bassline doesn’t fully arrive until past the two-minute mark, and by then you’re leaning in for it. Leo Wood’s voice has a smoky quality that keeps the whole thing from tipping into anthem territory. This is sunset-set music, the stuff DJs use to make a crowd sway rather than jump. I put it on during a grey afternoon and it genuinely shifted the room’s temperature up a couple of degrees. Grown-up dance music that trusts you to wait for the payoff. More of this, please.

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