News / electronic
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1 min read
Yere - Special
Read more . . . →Special is the rare NCS track I’d happily put on outside of a Fortnite lobby. Yere turns in a piece of melodic electronic with more emotional weight than the copyright-free catalogue usually bothers with — a wistful topline, a drop that prioritises melody over sheer volume, the whole thing carrying a slightly bittersweet glow. The lead synth in the drop at 1:20 has this bell-like tone that rings out over the beat rather than smashing through it, and the restraint is what makes it land. There’s a moment in the second breakdown where everything strips back to just piano and...
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1 min read
Projects in Blue - Believe In Me
Read more . . . →MrSuicideSheep uploads are a coin flip between forgettable and quietly great, and Believe In Me is the second kind. Projects in Blue work in that widescreen melodic-electronic zone where the goal is less a drop than a swell, and this one swells beautifully: the lead synth at 1:40 has a slight detune that makes it sound like it’s about to cry. The vocal is gentle, almost buried, more instrument than message, and it works better for staying back there. This is headphone music, the sort that makes a boring commute feel like the closing scene of a film you’d actually...
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1 min read
jonty - off2
Read more . . . →NCS is where a certain kind of listener goes for copyright-free energy, and most of it blurs together, so it’s worth stopping when something arrives with an actual identity. off2 has one. jonty builds it around a chopped vocal that’s been pitched and stuttered until it’s basically another synth, and the groove underneath has a bounce closer to UK garage than the usual NCS big-room fare. The drop at 1:15 is deceptively light, no massive wall of sound, just a springy bassline and that vocal doing gymnastics, and it’s more fun for the restraint. Lowercase-titled tracks by lowercase-named producers usually...
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1 min read
ILMA - Since That Day
Read more . . . →There’s a specific kind of electronic track built entirely around one moment of release, and Since That Day spends its whole runtime earning a single drop. ILMA holds the tension almost too long: the build from 1:10 keeps stacking layers, a vocal chop, a rising synth, a filter creeping open, until you’re basically begging for it, and then at 1:48 it finally breaks and the wait pays off completely. This is patient music in an impatient genre. A lesser producer drops the beat thirty seconds earlier and kills the whole effect stone dead. The melody itself is nursery-rhyme simple, which...
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1 min read
Trance is unfashionable and the A State of Trance crowd doesn't care
Read more . . . →A week out now. A State of Trance gets its own stage at Tomorrowland because Armin van Buuren is essentially a Belgian national monument at this point. Trance has been deeply out of fashion for years and its crowd could not care less, which is honestly the most punk thing about the whole festival. Two for the faithful: 1. Armin van Buuren - Blah Blah Blah Armin trolling the purists with a big-room stomper named after exactly what the snobs say about his commercial stuff. The joke is that it goes off harder than most of the “serious” records, and...
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1 min read
Said The Sky & Jakob Ahlbom - The Swell (Vincent Remix)
Read more . . . →The build on The Swell earns its name — Vincent stretches the tension out so far past the point you expect resolution that when the drop finally arrives at 1:50 it lands like an exhale you’ve been holding for a full minute. Said The Sky’s original was already emotional melodic bass, the kind of thing that soundtracks a thousand sunset festival clips, and Vincent’s remix keeps the feeling but sharpens the edges, giving the drop actual grit instead of just glossy uplift. There’s a chopped vocal running through the breakdown that flickers between words, and the synth work sits in...
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1 min read
Fairlane & DJ Mii - Over Me (feat. Ames)
Read more . . . →Ames has one of those slightly cracked voices that makes melodic dubstep worth defending, and Over Me builds its entire first half around getting out of her way. Fairlane is a Monstercat regular who tends toward the emotional end of bass music, and this leans hard into that: a big open pre-chorus, a drop at 1:47 that’s more shimmer than sludge, all wide synths and a kick you feel in your ribs. It’s pretty in a way heavy music is often too embarrassed to be. The featured vocal does real work here rather than marking time until the bass shows...
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1 min read
Eelke Kleijn x Layla Benitez feat. Leo Wood - Beg You
Read more . . . →That descending piano figure opening Beg You does an unreasonable amount of emotional lifting before a single drum arrives. Eelke Kleijn has been one of the more reliably classy names in melodic house for years, and teaming with Layla Benitez plus Leo Wood’s vocal gives this a proper song at its center instead of just a groove with a sample dropped on top. It builds slow, the way the good melodic house always does; the bassline doesn’t fully arrive until past the two-minute mark, and by then you’re leaning in for it. Leo Wood’s voice has a smoky quality that...
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1 min read
MALO - Akai Ito
Read more . . . →Ever hear a track and immediately want to know the story behind the title? ‘Akai Ito’ is the Japanese red thread of fate — the invisible string that ties people destined to meet — and MALO builds a whole piece of melodic electronica around that ache of connection-at-a-distance. It’s delicate stuff, all plucked synths and a beat that taps rather than hits, the kind of thing MrSuicideSheep has been championing for over a decade now. The melody has a genuine East-Asian lilt to it that never tips into pastiche, and around the two-minute mark a vocal chop enters that sounds...
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1 min read
V. Christie - Atlas
Read more . . . →The moment that sold me is at 1:40, when the whole track cuts to almost nothing and then rebuilds itself one layer at a time. Atlas is an NCS release, which usually means clean, stream-ready melodic electronic, and this is a very good example of the type without being a slave to it. V. Christie has a knack for a lead melody that lodges itself in your head on first listen, and this one had me humming it in the shower a full day later. The production is glossy in that copyright-free way, but there’s real songwriting under the polish,...
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