News / trap
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1 min read
Da Hool - Meet Her at the Loveparade (Hex Cougar Remix)
Read more . . . →Meet Her at the Loveparade is a 1997 track older than a lot of the people who’ll hear this remix, and that riff, the dun, dun-dun-dun of it, is permanently lodged in dance music’s collective memory. Hex Cougar takes it somewhere Da Hool never imagined: a filthy half-time trap flip that treats the original melody as bait before the drop swallows it whole. The genius is leaving the riff almost untouched so the recognition lands clean, then detonating underneath it at 1:22 with a bass sound like a garbage truck compacting. It shouldn’t work. A 90s trance classic has no...
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1 min read
BROKN - Feel It
Read more . . . →What separates good trap from the wall of interchangeable stuff on channels like this? Usually one weird decision, and Feel It has a couple. BROKN builds the drop around a vocal sample pitched down until it sounds genuinely haunted, then pairs it with a bassline that swings instead of just thudding in place. The result at 1:18 has actual groove, which is rarer in this lane than it should be; most trap drops are content to sit there heavy and static, and this one moves its hips. There’s a snare roll going into the second drop that’s programmed with real...
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1 min read
IKU - OBS3SS3D W U
Read more . . . →The spelling alone tells you this isn’t taking itself too seriously, and OBS3SS3D W U is all the better for it. IKU makes the kind of melodic trap that lives on the border of hyperpop, glitchy and bright and unafraid of a big, sugary vocal. The whole track is built around a chopped-up love-song sample that gets more mangled every time it comes around, until by the final drop it’s barely words at all, just texture. The drop at 1:15 is where it clicks, a skittering, detuned mess that somehow resolves into something you can actually move to. This is...
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1 min read
Eliminate - Open Your Eyes (SLICK FLIP)
Read more . . . →That flip turns a track you’ve half-heard a hundred times into something that actually grabs you by the collar. Eliminate has been one of the more reliable names in the colour-bass and trap crossover for a while, and this SLICK FLIP of Open Your Eyes leans into everything that makes his stuff work: bright, almost cartoonish synth leads over a low end that means business. The drop at 1:08 is a wall of colour, the kind of maximal, saturated sound design that either delights you or gives you a headache with no middle ground. I’m firmly in the delighted camp....
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1 min read
Deadcrow & Caster - Euphoria
Deadcrow & Caster's Euphoria is a total fake-out, nothing about this trap tune is euphoric, it's menacing and it physically moved the air in my room.Read more . . . →Get the tee →Support the blogMade for people who left the room during Yellow. -
1 min read
Knock2 - JUMP in
Read more . . . →Knock2 has quietly become one of the most reliable names in the festival-trap-meets-house lane, and JUMP in is another reason why. The man understands momentum better than almost anyone working this sound right now, the way a track needs to keep moving forward or die. This one rides a bouncing bassline that practically demands the titular response, with a build at 1:40 that coils up so tight you can feel the drop coming in your teeth. What I appreciate is the economy of it, no wasted bars, no filler section where he’s vamping until the next idea arrives. Every part...
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1 min read
Viperactive - MERCY x POP IT
Read more . . . →This is gleefully stupid in the best possible way. Viperactive takes two ideas that have no business in the same track, a “MERCY” chant and a “POP IT” bounce, and smashes them together into something built purely to make a crowd lose it. Trap Nation uploads can run together into one long beige drone of festival trap, so I notice when one of them actually has a personality, and this has personality to spare. The drop is obnoxious in the way good trap should be, with that detuned brass-honk lead that sounds like a malfunctioning car horn doing the heavy...
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1 min read
Ookay, Veronica Bravo - dontwakemeup
Read more . . . →Ookay will forever be the “Thief” guy to a lot of people, that one inescapable 2016 record, and the funny thing is he’s spent the years since quietly being a much more interesting producer than that single suggests. “dontwakemeup” pairs him with Veronica Bravo, and it’s a moodier, more emotional take on trap than the genre’s reputation for chest-beating would lead you to expect. The all-lowercase no-spaces title is doing some heavy lifting, signaling the bedroom-pop melancholy threaded through what’s underneath. Bravo’s vocal is half-asleep in the best way, drifting over a beat that hits hard but never loses its...
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1 min read
RAVEN - TOLD YOU
Read more . . . →Trap Nation closing out the list with RAVEN’s TOLD YOU, and this one’s got the kind of confidence the title promises. This is trap built for impact, all booming 808s and a vocal chop that struts through the track like it owns the place. RAVEN isn’t reinventing the formula here, but the execution is sharp enough that it doesn’t matter. The drop hits with real weight, the bass tuned low enough to test whatever you’re playing it through. What sets it apart is the melodic element threaded through the aggression, a haunting little synth line that gives the whole thing...
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1 min read
Pamex - brainwash
Read more . . . →Trap City surfaces a lot of disposable festival trap, so I went in skeptical, and Pamex’s brainwash slapped the skepticism right out of me. This is the kind of trap that doesn’t bother with subtlety because subtlety was never the point. The 808s are tuned to rattle whatever cheap speaker you’re playing it on, and the vocal chop in the build is genuinely unsettling in the best way, like a sample warped just past the point of being recognizable. The drop is mean. There’s a half-time switch in the second half that I did not see coming and it completely...
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