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1 min read
Cyantific - Call Me
Cyantific's Call Me is a two-note bassline built like a car door slamming — no filler, no wasted seconds, just DnB done right.Read more . . . →Subscribe →Weekly digestOne email per week with the tracks worth your time. No spam, no Coldplay. -
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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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1 min read
Modestep & H808 - Bugatti (Pythius Remix)
Read more . . . →Pythius doesn’t remix so much as repossess. He’s taken Modestep and H808’s “Bugatti” and dragged it into neurofunk territory, which means the bass no longer wobbles, it snarls, folds in on itself, and comes out sounding like a modem having a breakdown at 174 BPM. The original had that Modestep dubstep-rock swagger; Pythius keeps the attitude and swaps the engine for something with teeth. Modestep have always straddled the line between live-band chaos and studio bass music, so handing this to a producer who deals purely in precision is a funny move that pays off. The tear-out section past the...
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Twenty-Four Million and a Straight Face
Read more . . . →Wynn Resorts pocketed $2.22 billion in profit last year. Their Encore casino in Boston cleared $237 million on its own. CEO Craig Billings collected $24 million in compensation. And last week, 1,350 housekeepers, cooks, valet drivers, and cashiers walked out because the company decided a $10-an-hour raise spread over three years was asking too much. Three dollars and thirty-three cents a year. Then the company offered to fund their healthcare coverage out of that raise — so the raise just pays for what they already had. A $24-million man looked at his $237-million casino and told the people who clean...
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1 min read
LUMBERJVCK - CALL ME
Read more . . . →Heard the drop on this through a friend’s phone speaker across a table and still made the face. “CALL ME” is LUMBERJVCK on Dim Mak, and it’s bass house with its collar up, a filthy, rubbery low end and a vocal chop stabbing the same two syllables until they stop being words. Dim Mak has been the home for this kind of loud, slightly obnoxious dancefloor weapon since Aoki was throwing cakes, and this fits the roster like a glove. The drop doesn’t do anything clever; it just hits the sweet spot where a bassline is gross enough to make...
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