First thing in a while that made me want to be in a sweaty room full of strangers. Midnight Blues is deep, slightly melancholy house, the sort that understands the dancefloor is also where people go to feel their feelings in public. Jay Sync builds it on a warm, rolling bassline and a vocal that floats somewhere between a hook and a sigh, and the whole thing has a blue-hour glow to it, lonely but not sad, the specific mood of the last hour before a club turns the lights up. There is a piano figure that comes in late and lifts the whole track half an inch off the ground. It never rushes. It trusts the groove to do the emotional work, which is the hardest thing to get right in house and the first thing most producers overcook. Unshowy, after-hours dance music. The kind of track you only fully get once it is dark out.
January
Chrome Daydream
Chrome stars, jelly hearts and holographic colour. A nod to the glossy, optimistic graphics of the early web.