News
-
1 min read
BAGO - COMPOSURE
Read more . . . →How does a track called “COMPOSURE” end up being the least composed thing I’ve heard all week? BAGO builds the first ninety seconds like a proper liquid roller, all warm pads and a bassline that just purrs, and then torches the whole thing at the drop into something jagged and mechanical. The switch is genuinely disorienting the first time — I caught myself checking the tracklist to make sure it hadn’t skipped to a different song. That contrast is the entire hook: he lulls you into a comedown and then reminds you the club is still very much going. The...
Subscribe →Weekly digestOne email per week with the tracks worth your time. No spam, no Coldplay. -
1 min read
Tomorrowland turns 20 and the hype is insufferable and mostly earned
Read more . . . →Four days out and my feeds are 90% people you’ll never see again posting the same drone shot of the mainstage. Tomorrowland hits its 20th edition this year, they’ve branded it Consciencia, and yes, most of it is a very expensive Instagram backdrop with a castle stuck on top. But the thing didn’t get this big on nothing. Five tracks that will actually go off in Boom and won’t make you feel stupid for humming them on the flight home. 1. Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike vs Ummet Ozcan - The Hum The Belgian duo are basically Tomorrowland’s house band,...
Subscribe →Weekly digestSundays. One email. Zero ballads from white guys in beanies. -
1 min read
BILL Had a Good Quarter, So It Fired a Third of You
Read more . . . →BILL Holdings had a good quarter. Revenue up 13 percent, earnings beat, the kind of numbers a company puts in a press release with an exclamation point. So on May 7 the board did the obvious thing with all that success: it moved to fire up to a third of the company — roughly 700 people out of about 2,333 — and on the exact same day authorized a billion dollars to buy back its own stock. Not a slow quarter. Not a demand cliff. A beat. The money was never missing. There was a billion dollars sitting right there,...
Subscribe →Weekly digestWhat you missed this week, minus the corporate emo. -
1 min read
Anaïs, Stylo G & Lady Leshurr - Strong Like Lion
Lady Leshurr comes in already mid-argument on Strong Like Lion and never lets up. Three vocalists, one dubstep riddim, zero taking turns.Read more . . . →Get the tee →Support the blogSome shirts are statements. This one is a verdict. -
1 min read
909 RACING TEAM x DJ Melvin - L.O.I.S.
Read more . . . →“L.O.I.S.” comes screaming out of the gate at a tempo that dares you to keep up, all revving synth stabs and a kick that could pace a marathon. This is trance in its rowdiest, least tasteful mode, closer to the sweaty back corner of a festival tent than any candlelit Anjuna moment, and it’s better for that. The 909 Racing Team name is honest branding: the whole thing feels like a lap counter ticking down, tension winding tighter and tighter until the breakdown finally lets go around the two-minute mark. When it does, it’s pure serotonin, a supersaw lead so...
Get the tee →Support the blogMade for people who left the room during Yellow. -
3 min read
Aphex Twin for Beginners (Yes, Start Here)
Where to start with Aphex Twin? Skip the dare-you records. Begin with Selected Ambient Works 85-92, then Richard D. James Album. Start pretty, the terror waits.Read more . . . →Get the tee →Support the blogIf you wear this and someone hugs you, that's a real friend. -
1 min read
2frers - FLIRT LIGHTS
2frers' FLIRT LIGHTS sounds like neon bar signage came to life and started flirting with you. Cocky bass house built for 1am courage.Read more . . . →Get the tee →Support the blogLooks like Helvetica. Sounds like a closing argument. -
2 min read
This Week on coldplaysucks — July 5–12
Read more . . . →Sixty-odd tracks went up over the last week and the house crowd quietly ran the table, though drum and bass and dubstep were right behind it swinging. The recurring theme was old songs getting dragged somewhere they didn’t ask to go: a 1997 trance anthem turned into a trap crime scene, a 1972 afrobeat staple rebuilt as a peak-time house workout, and Vicetone’s “Nevada” flipped twice by two different people in the same seven days. If you like a producer robbing the past and getting away with it, this was your week. Track of the Week Da Hool - Meet...
Get the tee →Support the blogThree words. One opinion. Cotton. -
2 min read
Microsoft Fired the People Who Make Your Games. On a Three-Minute Call.
Read more . . . →Microsoft just deleted roughly 3,200 jobs out of Xbox — about a fifth of the whole division — closed or spun off a handful of studios, and in Montreal it fired a dozen unionized developers at Bethesda over a three-minute video call where they weren’t allowed to ask a single question. Sit with that for a second. Not the 3,200. The three. The people who built the worlds a lot of us disappeared into for a thousand hours — Doom, Fallout, the games that got some of us through a couple of bad winters — got less time to absorb...
Get the tee →Support the blogWhat if your laundry was also a personality? -
1 min read
Five days to Tomorrowland: the anthems doing laps in your head
Read more . . . →Five days out. This is the part of the run-up where the packing lists appear and the Mainstage anthems start doing laps in your head at 3am. Two records built for the exact moment the fireworks go off over the castle: 1. Hardwell - Spaceman The 2012 anthem that basically invented the modern Tomorrowland mainstage drop. That siren lead is pure adrenaline and the build is engineered to launch an entire field off the ground on the same beat. Hardwell is back on the bill this year stepping in for Guetta on the second Friday, and this is the one...
Get the tee →Support the blogShips in 3–5 days. The outrage ships immediately.
