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1 min read
Bad Company UK - Planet Dust (Latte Remix)
Read more . . . →Bad Company UK are drum and bass royalty, and Planet Dust is one of those tracks that helped define what heavy neurofunk could sound like back when half the people reading this were toddlers. So a Latte remix of it is a big swing, and Latte mostly nails it. The original’s menace is still there in the DNA, but Latte drags it into a modern, surgical kind of heaviness that the current dancefloor actually wants. The reese bass gets this updated grit that would have melted a 2002 sound system into slag. What I respect is that the remix doesn’t...
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4 min read
Liquid vs Neurofunk: One Is Self-Care, One Is a Threat
Liquid vs neurofunk: same 170 BPM, opposite nervous system. The dnb explainer for anyone who can't tell the hug from the threat.Read more . . . →Subscribe →Weekly digestSundays. One email. Zero ballads from white guys in beanies. -
1 min read
BUJA (BR) - Hysteria
Read more . . . →Second Dirtybird entry in the batch, and BUJA keeps the Brazilian tech house pipeline flowing with Hysteria. BUJA has been one of the more exciting names coming out of Brazil’s bass house and tech house scene, and Dirtybird is the perfect home for the kind of weird bouncy energy he trades in. Hysteria is built around a groove that wobbles and bounces in that classic Dirtybird way, the sort of low-end pressure that makes a dancefloor do something deeply undignified. There’s a playfulness to it that keeps the heaviness fun instead of grim, which is the whole Dirtybird ethos in...
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1 min read
DJ PUMA - LOVESICK
Read more . . . →NCS is a copyright-free machine, so most of what lands on the channel is functional more than memorable, music made to sit under Twitch streams without getting anyone struck. DJ PUMA’s “LOVESICK” actually rises above the pile. It’s a tight, bouncy house cut with a vocal chop that gets its hooks in fast and a bassline that struts more than it should for a free download. There’s a real sense of someone enjoying themselves behind the desk here, not just filling a content quota. The drop is simple and effective, the kind of thing that works whether you’re actually on...
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1 min read
Where The Warmth Actually Comes From
Read more . . . →Not the DJ’s transitions — the literal fire coming off the platter. Gather round, it’s the warmest thing in the set.
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1 min read
Dirtybird Radio 533 - Victoria Rawlins
Read more . . . →This one’s a mix, not a single, and that’s exactly why it earns a post. Dirtybird Radio 533 hands the controls to Victoria Rawlins, and an hour-plus in the Dirtybird universe is one of the most reliable ways to get your week moving. Dirtybird has spent years being the funniest weirdest most danceable corner of tech house, all booty-shaking grooves and a flat refusal to take itself seriously, and Rawlins clearly gets the brief. The selection rolls through exactly the kind of low-slung slightly ridiculous house and tech house that makes the label’s parties legendary. A good mix is its...
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1 min read
The Defqon.1 anthem is the one tradition hardstyle got right
Read more . . . →We’re under two weeks out from Defqon.1, which means it’s time to talk about the one piece of festival marketing that actually rules: the yearly anthem. Every June, Q-dance hands one artist the job of summing up the whole weekend in five minutes of kicks and screaming synths, and somehow it keeps landing. Most festival anthems are forgettable. These are the ones people still scream back a decade later. Here’s the through-line from 2011 to last summer. 1. Noisecontrollers - Unite The one that set the template. 2011 Noisecontrollers is pure early-Defqon euphoria, back when the kick still had a...
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1 min read
Chase & Status - BADDADAN (KNOCK2 RMX)
Chase & Status's BADDADAN was already a monster. KNOCK2 strips the UK swing and rebuilds it for American bass festivals. Both hit different.Read more . . . →Get the tee →Support the blogThree words. One opinion. Cotton. -
1 min read
Don Toliver - Body (AYDO8 Flip)
AYDO8 flips Don Toliver's Body into something heavier. That woozy Toliver croon over real sub-bass is exactly what you needed.Read more . . . →Get the tee →Support the blogWhat if your laundry was also a personality? -
1 min read
Ten Days On The Line
Read more . . . →In 2008 the workers at American Axle in Three Rivers, Michigan did the responsible thing. The company said the plant would die unless they gave back wages, so they gave back wages — a lot of them watched their pay get cut nearly in half, from $29 an hour to $14.50. They ate the concession to save their jobs. That’s the deal capital always offers in a downturn: bleed now or we close the doors. And for almost two decades they lived with it. Then this month nearly a thousand of them walked off the job at midnight, held the...
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