IOA on Revealed Recordings with “Bassline Soldiers.” The name tells you what’s happening here. Hardwell’s label staying on brand. There’s something honest about a track called “Bassline Soldiers” — it isn’t hiding the assignment, and neither am I when I tell you it does exactly what the title promises. Revealed is the Dutch label Hardwell started back in 2010, the home of a particular kind of big, room-filling dance music that doesn’t have a quiet setting, and IOA fits there like they were grown in a lab for it. The bassline is the whole personality. It marches, it doesn’t ask permission, and the drop arrives like a door getting kicked in. If you came here for subtlety, wrong post, wrong label, wrong everything. This is the kind of thing that sounds slightly absurd on laptop speakers and then completely makes sense the second it’s loud and there are bodies around it. IOA’s been carving out this lane for a while now — the acid edge they keep folding in is what keeps it from being just another faceless Revealed banger, and here it gives the low end this slightly unhinged buzz that I keep coming back for. Is it deep? No. Is it trying to be? Also no, and that’s the point. Some tracks are for staring at the ceiling at 2am and some are for the moment the floor goes off. This one knows exactly which it is. Turn it up and stop thinking.
More IOA on the blog — IOA - The Acid Vibe