How do Pola & Bryson keep finding vocalists who sound like they’re about to cry and dance at the same time? This Time hands the entire front half to Harriet Jaxxon and she earns it, riding a bed of soft rolling breaks that never once fight her for room. It’s liquid drum and bass built for the emotional gut-punch, the kind that turns up in a festival closing set right as the sun does something dramatic. The drop doesn’t detonate so much as bloom, the bassline warm and low and content to hold the groove. The earnestness that usually makes this corner of dnb hard to defend is exactly what makes This Time work. Jaxxon’s topline has a catch in it on the second chorus that gets me every single time. Pola & Bryson have been dependable for years now, and dependable badly undersells how consistently they nail this precise feeling. It’s the sort of track you send to someone at 2am with no message attached. They’ll understand.
January
Chrome Daydream
Chrome stars, jelly hearts and holographic colour. A nod to the glossy, optimistic graphics of the early web.