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1 min read
Parachutes turns 26 and it still sucks
Read more . . . →26 years ago today, Coldplay released their debut album Parachutes. It still sucks. This is the record people reach for when they want to argue the band was good “before they sold out,” which is the whole con — Parachutes wasn’t a promising start that curdled later, it was the finished blueprint for two decades of beige. Chris Martin already had the formula bolted down: strum four chords, aim the falsetto at the cheap seats, and mistake sounding sad for having something to say. “Yellow” bought the beach house and “Trouble” still leaks out of every coffee shop, but the...
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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
QUIX - FEAR
Read more . . . →QUIX has always been more interested in dread than drops, and FEAR is basically a thesis statement. The New Zealander built a reputation on trap that trades the genre’s usual bombast for something colder and more paranoid, and this one leans all the way into the unease the title promises. It opens on a detuned vocal sample that sounds like it’s being played through a broken phone, then the low end creeps in underneath rather than announcing itself, and by the time the first drop lands at 1:18 the whole thing feels like walking down a stairwell that’s darker than...
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1 min read
D.O.D & Hayley May - Closure (Friction Remix)
Read more . . . →The bassline Friction drops at 1:38 here is so simple it’s almost rude: three notes, rolling, no ornamentation, doing more than most producers manage with a full rack of plugins. Closure started life as a housier D.O.D record with Hayley May floating over the top, and Friction’s remix drags it into drum and bass without losing the ache in her vocal. That’s the trick. DnB remixes of emotional vocal tracks usually flatten the feeling into pure energy, but this one keeps the sadness and just gives it a faster pulse. Hayley’s chorus hitting over that half-time-into-full breakbeat is genuinely lovely,...
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1 min read
Dirtybird Radio 536 - Ustrell
Read more . . . →Not a single track this time but a whole Dirtybird Radio episode, and if you don’t know the label, this is a decent hour-long crash course in why they matter. Dirtybird built its reputation on tech house with a sense of humor: weird vocal samples, basslines that sound like cartoon frogs, a flat refusal to take the club too seriously. Episode 536 is full of that spirit. Ustrell handles the selection here, and it rolls from stripped-back groovers into the label’s signature goofy-but-heavy bombs without a single dull stretch. This is what I put on while cleaning the apartment or...
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1 min read
Mitekiss - Forty Times
Read more . . . →This is the kind of liquid that makes me forgive the entire genre for its softer sins. Mitekiss has quietly become one of Hospital’s most reliable names for exactly this — dnb that’s pretty without being wallpaper, emotional without tipping into greeting-card territory. Forty Times moves on a rolling, unhurried break with a vocal chopped just enough that you catch phrases without ever getting the full sentence, which somehow makes it hit harder than a clean topline would. The bassline is warm and round and sits so far back in the mix it’s almost subliminal, doing the emotional work while...
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1 min read
Dario Nunez, Danny Rhys - No Pares Sigue
Dario Nunez and Danny Rhys built No Pares Sigue for a sweaty room at 1am, Spanish vocal chant included. Deep listening was never the plan.Read more . . . →Get the tee →Support the blogWhat if your laundry was also a personality? -
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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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