It’s the last week of July, the sun doesn’t quit until nine, and every festival lineup you screenshotted back in March is happening somewhere without you. Fine. Here are five tracks built for open-air stages and the bad decisions that follow them, whether you make those decisions in a field or in your kitchen at midnight with the neighbours awake.
1. John Summit - Focus (feat. CLOVES)
John Summit spent 2025 quietly turning into a stadium act, and this is the track that did it. CLOVES sounds genuinely wrecked on the hook, and when the low end lands around the one-minute mark it reorganizes your chest cavity. I’ve heard it in three different bars this month and it clears the room’s inhibitions every single time.
2. FISHER x Kita Alexander - Atmosphere
Fisher makes exactly one kind of record and this is the best version of it. Kita Alexander’s vocal floats over a groove engineered for the exact moment the sun drops below the treeline. The breakdown before the second drop holds a beat too long on purpose, so the whole crowd inhales at once before it hits.
3. Sub Focus, Dimension - Ready To Fly
Two of the biggest names in UK drum and bass, and they made the most euphoric thing either has touched in years. The vocal is huge, the rollout at the drop is bigger, and it’s the rare festival DnB track that works at 2pm in a field and 2am in a warehouse without changing a thing about it.
4. RÜFÜS DU SOL - Music is Better
RÜFÜS DU SOL do sad-boy dancefloor better than anyone alive, and this is them at full mast. It builds for a good three minutes before it fully commits, and the patience is the whole point. Put it on for a night drive with the windows down and see if it doesn’t get you.
5. Dom Dolla, Tove Lo - CAVE
Dom Dolla can’t stop making tech-house that sounds like a party you weren’t cool enough to get into. Tove Lo shows up and hands it an actual pop spine, which is exactly what these grooves usually lack. The bassline is filthy in the most polite possible way.
Five down, a whole month of window left. Pace yourself.