You’ve heard Mau P even if the name’s new to you — he made “Drugs From Amsterdam,” the tech-house track that was completely inescapable a couple of summers back. “On Again” gets a rework from Butler here, who leans even harder into the hypnotic side than the original did. The bassline is pure rubber, that rolling tech-house groove that sounds simple right up until you try to stand still through it and physically cannot. Butler keeps everything minimal and lets the groove carry it, adding just enough extra percussion and a warped little vocal hook to earn the remix tag. This is peak-time DJ fuel, the sort of track that slowly annexes a room until everyone’s locked into the same swing without ever agreeing to it. There’s a stripped-back stretch in the middle where it drops to almost nothing but that bassline and a hi-hat, and it’s the part that’ll wreck a floor at 2am. Tech house gets a lot of stick for being everywhere, and a remix this tight is exactly why the sound refuses to die. Groovy in the least corny sense of that word. Made for the stretch of a night when nobody’s talking and everyone’s just moving.
January
Chrome Daydream
Chrome stars, jelly hearts and holographic colour. A nod to the glossy, optimistic graphics of the early web.