This is the good kind of pretty. Unglued and TJB team up with vocalist Esther Durin for Heaven, and it’s melodic drum and bass that earns the emotion instead of just gesturing at it with a big pad and a key change. Durin’s voice is the whole thing here, doubled and layered until it feels like a choir of one person, and when the drums finally sprint underneath her the effect is genuinely lifting. Melodic DnB is a minefield of the same three chords and the same yearning vocal doing the same thing, and most of it washes over me without leaving a mark. This one stuck. Part of it is the drum programming, which has a snap and a swing that a lot of these liquid tracks forget to include while they’re busy being emotional. Part of it is that Durin sells the topline like she means it rather than like she’s reading it. I’ve had it on repeat on the walk to get coffee twice this week, which is my most honest metric for whether a track works. It sounds festival-huge but rewards headphones, and it held up both ways. Worth your seven minutes.
January
Chrome Daydream
Chrome stars, jelly hearts and holographic colour. A nod to the glossy, optimistic graphics of the early web.