Sixty-three music posts in one week. House ran the table with thirteen, drum and bass brought the heavyweights, Mauro Picotto apparently woke up and chose violence with four releases, and hyperpop crashed the gate wearing a horse mask. If your ears survived November so far, you were not paying attention.
The Charts
- TLM feat. Merely - Summer Jam: holding the top spot for a 9th week. Not even close to slowing down. Listen →
- AK & Liam Thomas - Soft Touch: brand new on the chart and already at #2. More on this below. Listen →
- Cartoon & Artino - Ultraviolet: new entry. Listen →
- Crashguard - For A Moment: slipping from the #2 spot after 5 weeks on the board. Listen →
- Da Hool - Meet Her at the Loveparade (Hex Cougar Remix): 6 weeks in, starting to fade. Listen →
- Excision & Space Laces - True Killers: new entry. Listen →
- VARI - Displace: new entry. Listen →
- Amelie Lens - the energy is us: cooling off after 5 weeks, down from #5. Listen →
- Axel Knox - Set You Free: new entry. Listen →
Knocked off this month: BOP - Rumination, HESTER - KYOTO, Dimension & Subsonic - Ghost Town, Flava D, Casey Club & DRIIA - Revival.
Track of the Week
AK & Liam Thomas - Soft Touch
I called this one a scented candle when it came out in October. Pleasant while burning, gone from your head the second it goes out. Readers disagreed. Hard. It landed at #1 on the weekly chart and shot to #2 on the monthly in its first week. Liam Thomas has a genuinely gorgeous voice, and apparently that was more than enough. I still think the production plays it too safe, but the chart made its point and I will take the L on this one. Listen →
The New Drops
House (13 posts): House owned this week. Dusky flipped a South Asian vocal over deep house and made it feel like 2am on the right dance floor. Elvis Guetta sampled James Brown’s The Boss and somehow got away with it. Junior Jack and Mark Knight linked up. Sigala did piano house. The rest covered tech house to bass house and back. If you only listen to one genre this week, this is the one with the most to choose from.
Drum and Bass (11 posts): Andy C opened the week the way he has opened weeks for thirty years. Koven delivered melodic DnB with a vocal crack in the chorus that justified the whole record. Freaks & Geeks teamed up with Fred V and Raphaella for something bright, big, and slightly stupid in the best way. Liquid got three entries (1991, Desh, T & Sugah). Dentalplan and Pirapus brought the jungle. The full spectrum turned up.
Trance (8 posts): Four Mauro Picotto tracks. In one week. Lizard, Proximus, The Twilight Zone V2, Check This Out. The man is not pacing himself and we are all better for it. ARTY and Grum held down the progressive end. Infected Mushroom and Blastoyz formed something called Psy Trance Mafia (not subtle, not trying to be) and ran a track at 145bpm until the walls came off.
Melodic / Electronic (9 posts): The broader shelf. Blackmill remixed Blake Farfan. Sidewalks and Skeletons did the wave thing. Drove, MIND, and vinter filled the feelings-over-synths lane. Off Clouds and CHVCK went melodic bass. Ghost Jr went indie electronic. Doppenberg went progressive. Varied and wide.
Dubstep / Bass (6 posts): Klinical and Killa P made a 140 track that sounds like a genuine threat. Wraz and Hypho did the Bristol thing with a bitcrushed lead that sounds like a file corrupting in real time. Whales and msft went heavy in different directions. NOISECREAM and Lizdek brought the bass.
Hyperpop (5 posts): horsegiirL posted two tracks, fresh off that HARDCORE HEALING EP, still in horse-mask-at-the-front-of-the-rave mode. Ninajirachi got the Madeon remix. hatena arrived with more exclamation marks than consonants. angelrot and skrta closed it out.
Dance (4 posts): KAAZE dropped two big room tracks in seven days. MatricK and Matt Dybal also reported for duty. Play loud, think never.
Trap (3 posts): Alison Wonderland and WINK on RESCUE U. Juelz and Zedd got the mashup. Łaszewo and AVELLO went melodic. Quick and chaotic.
Hard Techno / Hard Dance (4 posts): Conrad Taylor, Charlie Sparks, LAWTON, Dani Thorne, tonytonychopper999. Fast, loud, and not interested in negotiating.
Also Banged This Week
- Klinical & Killa P - Bury Them: Killa P’s south London bark over 140 dubstep. A public safety concern. Listen →
- Dusky - Kadhalan (Loverboy Mix): South Asian vocal over deep house, warm and diasporic. Fifteen years in and still curious. Listen →
- Freaks & Geeks, Fred V & Raphaella - Hardline: four names on one DnB track and somehow it comes out lean instead of crowded. Listen →
- horsegiirL - have u eva: the hyperpop standout from a five-track EP drop. Start here. Listen →
- Elvis Guetta - The Boss: James Brown’s 1973 funk over Defected house. Shameless feel-good music. Listen →
See you next week. Coldplay still sucks.