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1 min read
Papa Khan - SUFFOCATE
Read more . . . →“SUFFOCATE” is darker than most of what NCS puts out, and that’s exactly why it works. Papa Khan builds this around a claustrophobic, mid-tempo bass groove and a vocal that sounds genuinely strained — fitting for a track with that title — and the result has a menace the label’s gaming-stream catalogue usually sands off. The drop at 1:24 doesn’t go big, it goes tight and low, a compressed snarl of bass that feels like the walls closing in rather than opening up. I respect the restraint; the easy move would have been a festival-sized lead, and Papa Khan resists...
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1 min read
Matt Pridgyn, Pontifexx - Hero
Read more . . . →Big, dumb, and completely irresistible — “Hero” knows exactly what it is. Proximity built its whole channel on this flavour of anthemic electro, and Matt Pridgyn and Pontifexx have delivered a textbook example: a soaring vocal about being someone’s hero, a build that telegraphs the drop from a mile off, and then a drop at 1:12 that lands with all the subtlety of a firework in a phone booth. The lead synth is pure serrated euphoria, the kind that was everywhere around 2015 and has quietly come back into fashion. I’m a sucker for it and I refuse to be...
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1 min read
The techno stage doesn't care that you're on holiday
Read more . . . →The techno tent at Tomorrowland is a strange thing to walk into after the mainstage. There’s no confetti and no vocalist begging you to put your hands up, and the drops aren’t telegraphed forty-five seconds in advance. Just a relentless grey kick and a room full of people staring at the floor in bliss. It’s the least Instagrammable corner of the whole site and, on the right night, the best one. Weekend two lands tomorrow. Here’s what that room sounds like this year. 1. Eli Brown x HI-LO - Pyramid Rave Oliver Heldens moonlighting as HI-LO next to Eli Brown,...
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1 min read
Seven Lions - Breaking Me
Read more . . . →Seven Lions has been doing the melodic-dubstep-meets-trance thing for so long that it’s easy to take him for granted, and then a track like “Breaking Me” reminds you why the lane exists in the first place. It opens gentle, all breathy vocal and reverb, and you brace for the drop, but he holds it, letting the tension coil for a full minute before the bass finally tears in around 1:20 with those signature detuned growls layered under a soaring lead. That contrast is his entire signature: the pretty and the heavy sharing the same bar, neither one apologising. The emotional-uplift...
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1 min read
They Put a Clock-In App on the People Who Defend You
Read more . . . →Public defenders are the people who stand between a broke stranger and a cage, for a salary that wouldn’t cover a Brooklyn one-bedroom. Brooklyn Defender Services just spent days on a picket line to claw back a little dignity, and their contract fight ended in a tentative deal on Tuesday. The Bronx Defenders are set to walk on July 27. Not over some fortune. Over a tracking app that makes them clock in and out like they’re suspected of skimming the register, and over a probation period where management can fire a new hire “for any reason.” Sit with “for...
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1 min read
MatricK - Devotion
Read more . . . →“Devotion” is the kind of track that rewards patience, which makes it the odd one out on a label better known for detonations. MatricK builds this around a hypnotic, driving groove closer to a progressive-house pulse than a mainstage explosion, and it’s better for the discipline. The drop at 1:40 doesn’t blow up so much as unfold — a rolling bassline and a shimmering lead that build pressure gradually instead of dumping it all at once. There’s a genuinely hypnotic quality to how the main motif repeats and slowly mutates over four minutes; I stopped noticing time passing about halfway...
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1 min read
Benny L & Cleveland Watkiss - Metaphors
Read more . . . →Benny L makes some of the hardest, most weaponised jump-up DnB going, all air-raid basslines and no mercy. Cleveland Watkiss is a jazz vocalist and one of the original jungle MCs, a proper piece of the music’s history. On paper they’ve got no business on the same record. On “Metaphors” that history and that horsepower actually meet: the vocal winds through the intro with real warmth before the bass drops in around 0:50 and turns the whole thing into a warehouse. What I love is that the bass doesn’t flatten the vocal, it converses with it. Watkiss floats over the...
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1 min read
Ian Redman - Rave It
Read more . . . →“Rave It” does not have a single subtle bone in its body, and thank god for that. Ian Redman turns in a proper Revealed-style banger — a pumping, festival-primed beat, a chopped vocal barking the title, and a drop at 1:08 that’s built for a field full of people losing their minds at midnight. Revealed has a house style and this fits it like a glove: high energy, big hooks, zero patience for anyone who wants nuance. The bassline on the drop has a satisfying elastic snap, and there’s a rave stab buried in the second half that’s a direct...
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4 min read
deadmau5: The Troll Who Took EDM Seriously
deadmau5 is a mouse-headed Twitter troll, sure. He's also one of the most serious producers in EDM. 'Strobe' settles the argument.Read more . . . →Get the tee →Support the blogWhat if your laundry was also a personality? -
1 min read
Bishu - FADEAWAY
Read more . . . →“FADEAWAY” is built around a vocal hook that’s genuinely sad, a lyric about someone slipping away that could soundtrack a breakup, and then the drop reframes all that melancholy as something you can move to. Bishu has been quietly reliable for years and this is a clean reminder why. The production is glossy without being sterile; there’s a plucked synth line in the verses that gives it a heartbeat before the bass takes over. Around 1:30 the drop hits with a growl that’s more melodic-dubstep than straight bass, wobbly but tuneful, sitting right under the vocal instead of stomping on...
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