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1 min read
Dejector - Run Together (feat. Ella Clayton)
Read more . . . →Found this at midnight through the MrSuicideSheep rabbit hole and it kept me up another hour. Run Together pairs Dejector with Ella Clayton for a melodic electronic track that sits somewhere between future bass and something softer, and it caught me off guard with how much it actually feels. Clayton’s vocal is the anchor, a little fragile in a way that reads as real rather than performed, and the production gives it room instead of burying it under maximalist noise the way this style usually does. When the drop finally opens up it’s warm and wide, more sunrise than fireworks....
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1 min read
Pay to the Order Of
Read more . . . →Amount left blank. Date left blank. Photo op fully funded. Six smiles, one giant cheque, and the only thing written on it is a promise to write something later. The cameras got what they came for. The line item did not.
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1 min read
York - On The Beach (Magic Marc's Radiomix)
Read more . . . →Is there a more summer-holiday trance record than York’s “On The Beach”? Serious question. The original dropped in 2000, built around that instantly recognizable Chris Rea guitar line, and it’s been soundtracking sunburns and cheap package holidays for a quarter century now. This Magic Marc’s Radiomix polishes it up for modern systems without gutting what made it work, which is the whole risk with touching a track this beloved. The Chris Rea sample is still front and center, that wistful little guitar phrase that somehow sounds like the last day of a trip before you’ve even left. Around 1:40 the...
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1 min read
Cyantific - Call Me
Read more . . . →If you came up on the Hospital Records sound in the 2010s, you already know what a Cyantific track feels like, and Call Me delivers it. This is clean, punchy drum and bass with a vocal hook that lodges immediately and refuses to leave, the kind of track built for a peak-time set when everyone’s already sweating. The bassline is a simple two-note thing that hits like a car door slamming, and everything else in the arrangement gets out of its way. What I like is that it doesn’t overstay; a lot of DnB pads itself out to seven minutes,...
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1 min read
Chillville Citizens Exclusive Preview - reject modernity, embrace whatever this is 🌳
Read more . . . →Sunday, 7am, coffee not yet working, and this is the only thing on the internet that met me where I was. Chillhop Music dropped a preview under a title that’s basically a mission statement, “reject modernity, embrace whatever this is,” and whatever this is turns out to be exactly right for a slow morning. It’s the usual chillhop furniture done well: dusty piano loops, a kick that sounds wrapped in a wool sock, vinyl crackle mixed loud enough that you notice it and then forget it. What saves it from being wallpaper is the bass, which actually moves instead of...
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1 min read
Reece Rosé, STREETSINEZ - Just Need Ya
Read more . . . →This is a proper little earworm and I’m mildly annoyed about it. “Just Need Ya” from Reece Rosé and STREETSINEZ is bouncy, garage-tinged house on NCS, the kind of track engineered to be immediate and absolutely succeeding at it. At 1:18 the beat strips back to just the vocal and a shuffling hi-hat before the bass rolls back in, and that little reset is the hook that got its claws in me. The vocal’s got a UKG lilt to it, all swing and cheek, riding a bassline that skips instead of thudding. STREETSINEZ keeps turning up on these bright house...
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1 min read
Twenty-Five Years and a Beer Ban
Read more . . . →Twenty-five years ago today, US airspace shut down and 38 planes carrying 6,500 people dropped into Gander, Newfoundland — a town of about ten thousand that wasn’t expecting any of them. The people of Gander emptied their fridges, opened their churches, dragged cots into community halls, and took care of complete strangers for days. They didn’t negotiate terms. They didn’t send an invoice. They just did it, because that’s what you do when your neighbor’s house is on fire. Today, on the anniversary of that, the president of the United States is banning Canadian beer. Canadian rye whisky. Canadian motorcycles....
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1 min read
Oden & Fatzo x Noa Milee - You Don't Want To Think About It (Live Session)
Read more . . . →There’s a Defected live session shot in some sun-drenched room and it makes you want to quit your job and learn to DJ badly. Oden & Fatzo have been turning into one of the most fun house acts going, all bouncing basslines and vocal hooks that lodge before the first chorus is done, and “You Don’t Want To Think About It” with Noa Milee is peak them. The live-session format suits it; you can see the thing being built, hands on the gear, Noa Milee’s vocal happening in the room rather than comped together after the fact. At 2:41 the...
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1 min read
Golden Years
Read more . . . →The retirement plan was a vest. He is 78, he is smiling, and he is the first face you see at the door because the pension was the first thing to leave. The poster behind him sells a beach. His shift ends at six.
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1 min read
Netrum, Halvorsen - Glowing
Read more . . . →If you’ve spent any time in the NCS corner of YouTube, Netrum and Halvorsen are practically furniture by now, and “Glowing” is them doing the bright, melodic thing they’ve gotten excellent at. This is copyright-free music, a category people love to sneer at, and the best of it has more craft than the sneering allows. “Glowing” is one of the good ones. It rides a plucky, feel-good lead and a vocal that stays just this side of saccharine, and the drop opens up into something genuinely warm rather than just loud. Halvorsen’s fingerprints are all over the topline; he’s got...
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