Sully – Broadway G
Have you ever had a moment where you hear a word you’ve heard a million times and out of nowhere the etymology just clicks? That’s how “Broadway G” makes me feel about dubstep. It’s not quite the same dramatic snap (usually followed by a dumbfounded moment of “am I an idiot?”) since I was already well aware of the genre’s genealogy, but there is something beautifully satisfying about tracks that arrive at dubstep by… dubbing out two-step. It’s like a good fresh-sliced deli sandwich or a perfect piece of sashimi. No need to drench them in sauce, because the joy is in tasting the pure flavors of the basic ingredients.
Buckley – Void 19
Buckley is operating in a similar space here, but this track feels less like “dubbed out 2-step” and more like dubstep with some 2-step flourishes. There is no concession of bass in the name of melody or wonk here, just pure subby oomph snapped together with crisp, echoed drums. “Void 19” feels impactful, intentionally so. The hypnosis here is all in the bass imploring you to rattle with the speakers and phrase-end fills placed in just the right spot to induce your hands to fly in punctuation. It doesn’t so much borrow the buildup-drop structure of trance or American dubstep as compress it into half-second doses to release the pressure in jerking steps throughout.
Bruce – The Price
This one really is something. Bruce has, fresh out of his pop era, delivered a track that sounds like Noddy Holder’s industrial techno side project. I want to like it, I really do, but the lead melody stirs up horrible memories of my underwritten GarageBand techno tracks from middle school. That said, it’s a fun beat and an inspired collision of styles. “The Price” moves; it begs to be DJed with. I look forward to finding new pockets of rhythm hidden in the swing. If nothing else, Bruce has convinced me that a great techno track with a glam stomp beat is possible – not something I would have imagined a week ago.
Y U QT – You Know What I Want
Y U QT made one of my favorite quick tracks of all time in “When I’m With U” and now they seem determined to ensure that it doesn’t fall from the top spot by making a pivot to your favorite genre and mine, Big Room Sad. This track has more of a disconnect between its parts than other genre pillars like Bicep or Overmono though, possibly because the drums are just so two-step and the synths are just so trance. Instead of coming together as one cohesive whole that blends the two genres it feels more just like, well, two-step drums over trance synths. Y U QT don’t yet sound comfortable with the scale that big room sad demands. Bicep’s best songs sound like Drumsheds or Printworks look, but Y U QT can’t quite leave behind the sound of a smaller, more intimate room. That isn’t the worst thing in the world, but it makes me miss the more straight-ahead sweatbox speed garage of their earlier tracks and it makes me wonder just how much the Big Room Sad sound has left in the (big, sad) tank.
Dewey Decimal – Treat Me Right
2-step, undubbed. This one’s a throwback in more than just the sound. UKG producer Riz La Teef put it out on his South London Pressings label (which also released some earlier Y U QT) as “PURE BLACK LABEL BUSINESS” — no credits, no art, no nothin’. All we know is that Dewey Decimal is “a well known artist” who is not La Teef himself, and that the song absolutely bumps. In terms of internet-age attempts to recreate white label exclusivity I prefer this to the timed-release CloudCore model, particularly since it puts more focus on the music itself rather than the hype of artificial scarcity. What would you rather reward, speed or taste? And how’s your Supreme bogo hoodie collection doing?
Against All Logic – City Fade
Sometimes I forget that high quality house is just the best music. Yes house can get boring, yes it can get formulaic, but when it’s made by someone who really knows what they’re doing it can sound like the last hundred years of musical progress all in one song. House is music’s best sponge, soaking up ideas from disco and techno and hip hop and whatever your favorite style is and turning them into something new. Nicolas Jaar as Against All Logic stirs in the organic microhouse of Ricardo Villalobos or Four Tet and the folk-inflected downtempo of Nicola Cruz and the result is pure alchemy.
Plastikman – Konception
This is a result of my recent project to flesh out some of the gaps in my familiarity with old adance music. I have a tendency to dip a toe into an artist’s back catalog (well, front catalog sometimes) then move on when I get the gist — which was great when I was trying to hoover up as much context as quickly as possible, but I ended up with a lot of half formed opinions shaped from the silhouette of music discussion more than the music itself. So here I am, giving a proper shake to Richie Hawtin in the year of our lord two thousand and twenty-five, and I see what I’ve been missing. Musik came out 30 years ago now, and still sounds like I could hear it in a club tomorrow and not blink an eye. The bleep-y, rounded off acid licks are a clear precursor to contemporary releases from people like Priori, D. Tiffany or Skee Mask — all of whom I wholeheartedly enjoy.
X-Press 2 ft. Sailor & I – The Rain
My path in to electronic music was through pop, and I’ll always have a soft spot for dance music that operates in a pop mode without losing too much of either aspect. “The Rain” is a hooky, understated acid pop track, which feels like a pile of contradiction but like the best music does it resolves those contradictions into satisfaction. In doing so it pushes all the right buttons for me experientially. You can get lost in its hypnosis one moment, then whistle the earworm vocal part the next.
John Tejada & Plaid – Bittersweet
This one’s just buttery smooth, starring synth lines with just enough buzzing harmonics that when the chords resolve, the entire timbre snaps together like aural LEGO. The sound of the 20s may be pristine hyper-digital sound design, but Tejada and Plaid show how satisfying rougher sounds well-composed can be.
Aphex Twin – Tha
The Aphex Twin of it all makes me forget sometimes how well Richard D. James can turn out a relatively conventional track. “Tha” is just sublime, one of those 9-minute tracks that’s a simple loop at its core but nevertheless tricks you into thinking it’s about three seconds long and should actually be played again right now, thank you. It reminds me of some my favorite Burial works, and not just because of the distant voice samples layered over scratchy percussion. Burial and Aphex have both taught me to expect the off-kilter in their works – broken beats, broken hearts, broken synthesizers that sound like broken power tools. Then, just when they’ve got you on your toes waiting for a punch to roll with, they serve up something sweet and straightforward but none the worse for it like “Tha” or “Ashtray Wasp.” I want to float away in “Tha” and let the clicky pulse of the kick drum rock me like waves.
