The Letter M

Month: March 2025

  • TWC 39

    DJ Koze – Pick Up (12″ Extended Disco Version)

    “Pick Up” is a long-time favorite of mine. I was in high school when it came out, and I remember my friend running up to me on the sidewalk to tell me about this new song he’d heard that was just like old Daft Punk. I don’t think “Pick Up” sounds too much like our favorite French robots, but that reminder is part of the trick of it. A Daft Punk version of “Pick Up” would be shorter, tighter, trickier. A version by either solo robot might even be a stomper. Koze is content to tease out the loops to their breaking point, pushing the 12” disco version to a 10-minute runtime that earns every second. “Pick Up” hits an underexplored middle ground in filter house, halfway between the rollicking disco rave-ups of Cassius or Modjo or, yes, Daft Punk, and the moody, minimal deep house loopers of Pepe Bradock or Moodymann. Instead of throwing your hands in the air or putting your head down, the song asks you to float along with it, to soar if you want to. “Pick Up” is music to be listened to outside. “Pick Up” is music to dance to at a picnic on a summer evening with a good breeze going. “Pick Up” is sunset music, blissful or melancholic depending on your angle, to help you drink in the last of the sun’s warmth on a lovely day.

    Park Hye-Jin – Like This

    “Like This” is a great example of the woozy, pop-tinged sensibility of lo-fi house, a sound understandably maligned for its soft Drakeish mediocrity that is nonetheless tied to some of the best low-key grooves of the 2010s. I almost wish “Like This” was twice as long, because despite its similar chilled tones it’s much denser than “Pick Up” in a way that feels claustrophobic when the two are so closely juxtaposed. Still, Park’s self-sampled vocals and the fuzzy sound palate evoke the cozy solitude of bedroom pop nicely, and the track brings deep house sonics to pop structures much better than the big room “deep house” sound peddled by Tchami and co. around the same time.

    Cousin – tooth 4 tooth

    I might overuse aqueous imagery on this blog, but maybe I just blog about watery music. “Tooth 4 Tooth” sounds like a rainy day at a lily pond, like synthesized Monet. We’re not fully underwater, but we’re pondering wetness to be sure. I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of Wisdom Teeth’s Club Moss compilation (a perfect name by the way) and its genius stroke of asking ambient-leaning producers to make uptempo music, because the hybrid of the sound palate and the composition makes for an album of very welcoming music. It had been a while since I last listened to Club Moss before I plucked “Tooth 4 Tooth” for this week’s tracklist, but jumping back in felt like I had never stopped rinsing it. I’m at a point of my life where I’m realizing how much time ahead of me I have to listen and read and watch, how much art has yet to exist, and part of that realization is the dawning knowledge that I’ll get to listen to my favorite albums again far off in the future as a different person entirely. I don’t know what I’ll think of Club Moss and “Tooth 4 Tooth” when I’m 60, but I hope it stirs up good memories of putting it on repeat the summer of 2024.

    Jorg Kuning – Mercedes

    Like I said last week, this is a pro-Jorg blog. Most of his releases that I’ve heard thus far tend towards the bloopy, modular end of things, but Mercedes turns to samples to create an experience remarkably reminiscent of There Is Love In You-era Four Tet. Despite the resemblance, the track is covered with Kuning’s fingerprints in the form of squiggly zips and squelches that flutter through the background of the track like lightning bugs. “Mercedes” also leans more towards the organic, building its sound over a base of woody, rounded drums. I hope this track can build up some steam with DJs, because even when I listen to it alone I can already hear layers of other tracks fading in on top and chasing its rhythms around the dancefloor to create something new.

    Four Tet – Unicorn

    “Unicorn” arguably finds its true form as an extended live version but the original is still a thrilling little crescendo of bleeps and bloops. The patterns sound generative to me (in a “randomized sequencer” or “Brian Eno” way, not a ChatGPT way), a reminder of what Four Tet does best – bring live-band looseness to unmistakably electronic music. Even on his most digital-sounding tracks like this one, there’s a sense of performance, a feeling that the music has been played rather than programmed, a suspicion that the next time you listen the beeps might be in a subtly different place. Sometimes that’s literally true – the digital and vinyl masters of some Four Tet tracks were recorded on different passes of midi randomizers, meaning they are genuinely different performances of the same piece. Other times it’s just built-in looseness, the parts not quite fitting together as tightly as they could to great effect. It’s thrilling every time. “Unicorn” also features another signature Four Tet trick, the third act switch-up, teasing a new idea just as the piece fades to a finish. I hope the ideas never run out, but even if he never made another track Four Tet would have one of the best catalogs in dance music, ever.

    Piezo – TB2 (with K-LONE)

    Listening to “TB2” is like sitting in the eye of a very gentle tornado, floating on your armchair listening to the soft synth arpeggio at the center of the track while drums and swooping effects swirl around you. It’s a very pleasant experience, a standout on an EP full of standouts, and a collaboration that feels like an equal distribution of style. I might play a lot of watery music, but this is another classical element entirely, an air track. “TB2” keeps you moving with subtle shifts in atmospheric pressure. It’s circulatory music.

    Djrum – Three Foxes Chasing Each Other

    Between Skee Mask and Djrum, we’re in a boom period for savantish IDM-adjacent producers. Resident Advisor has already taken the first steps towards canonization with their Gabriel Szatan-penned profile of Mr. Mask from last November, and conversation around both artists tends towards the reverent hushed tones usually reserved for people like Aphex Twin, Autechre, and Jeff Mills. The two are mirror images in a way. Skee makes a little bit of everything, from trip hop to jungle to dub to uncut techno stompers, and his mixes cede priority to his productions. Even when his tracks are undeniable club-ready bangers they feel like they’re for someone else to play, so that he can go back to the studio and make more music. Unlike the reclusive German, Djrum has largely made his name as a DJ (he’s playing in Portland next month – look forward to that set report here) who also releases bafflingly complex IDM tracks clearly informed by his classical training. Even with mixing skills that spin heads almost as much as records, tracks like “Three Foxes Chasing Each Other” feel an ocean away from mixability, the skittering, footwork-inspired drums over kalimbas and shakuhachi flutes(!) evoking Jlin more than DJ Manny. Add in the oil painted cover and galleristic titles and the overall effect is of a musician aspiring to fine art. I’m not opposed to the elevation of club music to museum levels, in fact that’s half the point of this blog, but I hope that we’ve learned our lesson from the first wave of IDM – don’t call a genre “Intelligent Dance Music.” Djrum and Skee are undeniably talented and deserve to be celebrated, but it feels dangerous to prioritize the elevation of the individual at a time when the economics of the music industry already threaten the continued existence of communities, the most basic building blocks of dance music.

    Tristan Arp – Life After Humans

    I described “Life After Humans” on air as “glitchy ambient,” which may sound like an oxymoron but I challenge you to deny it once you hear the song. “Life After Humans” is ambient via cocoon, weaving microsamples and textures together to form an organic sonic fiber that blankets your ears in grass and vines. It’s similarly dense to “Three Foxes Chasing Each Other” but the two cuts use their complexity to distinctly different ends, one chasing and unsettling, the other soothing and supportive. The fourth(!) Wisdom Teeth release on this week’s list is also the second 10 minute song, and it’s a capable bookend to Koze’s opener. “Life After Humans” is similarly sunny, but its warmth is that of a morning rather than an evening. The light in this song is not fading but nourishing, a source of sonic photosynthesis for the soul.

  • TWC 38

    Breaka – Dream Sequence 19

    “Dream Sequence 19” is the highlight of Breaka’s new album Aeoui for me (at least until I listen to “Yolo Bass Rewind” a few more times). I don’t love the record as a whole, excellent cover notwithstanding. It feels caught in the middle of Surgeon-y UK Techno, East Coast club, and something altogether spacier. “Dream Sequence 19” excepts itself by leaning further than any other track into the dreamy soundscape mode the name suggests, without losing sight of dancefloor ambitions. The synths sound like they were put through a thunder tube, the drums are well-mixed and well-programmed, and the whole track has just enough off-kilter echoing shuffle to put you off your balance. It’s not that it’s undanceable, but it’s just far off enough from the peak danceability of UKG or broken beat that I would have to take a second and recalibrate when the tune drops in all the way – and I love that. “Dream Sequence 19” wants you to dance, but you must first answer its questions three.

    Call Super – Naive Step One

    If Pioneer made DJ decks that needed to be cared for like Tamagotchi, this song would come pre-loaded. “Naive Step One” is a quirky little stepper that’s happy to meander. There is something anthropomorphic about the leads to this one, and combined with the ‘90s jungle-esque seascape chords the whole effect is something like an animalian slice of life. This is the cut that the bugs are getting down to at the watering hole, the soundtrack to a mystical woodland rave-up without a human in sight. I’m excited about the idea of creating small utopian spaces as artistic expression, and this song just about does that all on its own.

    Jorg Kuning – Skudde

    Jorg Kuning might be my new favorite producer. Skudde is the second single off his new EP Mercedes, coming soon on Wisdom Teeth, and it sounds like someone ran Royksopp’s “Eple” through a hair crimper. Kuning is apparently a modular synth wizard (the proper term for anyone who can wrangle a full song out of those beasts), which makes his music even more pleasing because this sounds like music that should come out of a mess of tangled patch cables placed by a cackling madman. Kuning also plays live sets, or at the very least hybrid dj sets. I hope one day to see him pop up from behind the decks a la the taken-down Gesaffelstein Boiler Room moment with a mad grin as a shower of cables announces his presence like pyrotechnics.

    Giorgio Maulini – Freeyeyo

    FM wobble might be the acid 303 bassline of the 21st century: addictively tweakable, extremely listenable, and starting to run out of new ideas. Still, the 303 is as immortal as it is because the thing is fun as hell for producers and for listeners, and “Freeyeyo” certainly taps into that joy. I stumbled into this one at the wonderful Passenger Seat Records a few weeks ago, and picked it up again when my open decks set was unexpectedly extended and I ran out of records to play. Turns out it’s also fun as hell to mix with, and at that point I just couldn’t say no. The wobble in “Freeyeyo” is actually nestled fairly low in the mix, which helps it avoid many of the cliches of tweak-synth music. Structurally, the whole thing is more like a deep house collage song than a pure one-liner tweak song, with good swingy drums and a nice funky bass to hold the track together while the tweaks skitter around on the top. There are 303-esque bloops in here too, which make the track more of a historical document than it was probably intended to be – past and present, coexisting.

    Björk and Rosalia – Oral (Olof Dreijer Remix)

    I am, unfortunately, a Björk neophyte. I’m working on it, taking my time, album by album. I don’t want to blow through her whole discography at top speed without giving myself time to sit with the music; I don’t want to miss the trees for the forest. A friend recently gave me a guided tour through some of her music videos and I was absolutely blown away, to the point where I may have to start from the beginning with a wider net to not miss a thing — some, like “Triumph of a Heart” are pure fun, others, like “All is Full of Love” and “Mutual Core” feel essential to the songs themselves. Björk has been ahead of her time for most of her career, and dance music might just now be catching up. She dominates the artificial-natural sound around which this whole episode is built.

    Going back to some of her earliest works she confidently embodies a strain of futurism that requires the natural world rather than rejecting it. Even in the “All is Full of Love” video, which depicts a purely machine scene, the core emotion is a physical, human love. The video for the original version of “Oral” stars deepfakes of Björk and Rosalia, who donated all of their income from the recording to environmentalist efforts in Iceland. You can find that interplay of humanism and environmentalism with wary futurism in the visual design of the Portland party Osmosis, in Montreal’s Naff Recordings, in the work of Davis Galvin and Doctor Jeep and Djrum and so many others at the forefront of dance music.

    That intersection is in the sound, too. Olof Dreijer flips the relatively slow original into a shuffling, danceable track that sounds like it was grown rather than made. The woody, clomping drums make a fertile soil for squiggly pea-shoot synth lines to explode from and swirl around Björk and Rosalia’s vocals, chopped from their balladic structure into hooky snippets that reverberate around the space and push the song forward. Björk’s music at its best feels like it taps into some primordial sonic ooze, long forgotten but remembered in our DNA. Like Björk herself says in “The Modern Things,” I think this remix has always existed, it’s just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment.

    Nicolas Vallée – New New York

    “New New York” is the A side to a legendary B side, to the point that I’m not sure I’d ever heard the track when I bought the record in 2017. I am of course referring to DJ Falcon and Thomas Bangalter’s edit of Valerie by Steve Winwood, the original in a cascade of versions eventually resulting in Eric Prydz’ chart-topper “Call On Me” – or at least it would be if that version had ever seen a release. As far as I can tell the version on my copy is a reconstruction of that original edit by a Swedish duo called (unfortunately) Retarded Funk, who are not credited on the release at all — and neither is Vallée. “Call On Me” is fun but “New New York” is just as good and frankly more interesting. It trades the bombastic arena chorus for a more understated sample loop cut from Rafael Cameron’s 1981 electro song “Funtown U.S.A.,” but the defining features are the micro-samples of funk keyboards that Vallée uses as punctuation between bars. I love a well-done pause, and the cheeky retro synth wiggle intensifies the impact. Imagine if Eric Prydz had lifted the A side rather than the B, and we had the “Pryda Wiggle” instead of the Pryda Snare…

    Harry Romero – Nice to Meet You

    …ok, this one is just straight up goofy. Roman Flugel was kind enough to ID this for me after I haplessly described it to him as “built around saxophone one shots on the same note with different tonalities.” Well, that saxophone was actually a kazoo, which only raises the goof factor. Good song structure and a genuinely well-deployed bassline save this one from falling straight into the novelty pit, and it sounded legitimately good on the club speakers at Process. I can’t say this is one I’ll play frequently, but it did make me crack a huge grin on the dancefloor which is a success in its own way.

    Danny Daze & Jonny From Space – Sweet Spot Radio

    Sweet Spot Radio is a track with international bona fides: label Craigie Knows is from Scotland, Danny Daze is from Miami, and Jonny From Space is from space. The combination of UK dubstep and woody drums is potent and well executed here, though I can’t help but feel that the names involved with this release could have turned out something more interesting. As is, it’s a fun track that I’d be happy to play in a set but I’m not chomping at the bit to hear.

    Doctor Jeep – Pula Perereka

    This inclusion was a literal angle on my part. Artificial and organic? Why not a gleaming metallic Doctor Jeep track that samples a frog? As the synthesis in dance music gets more and more complex it almost horseshoes back around to sampling, so why not close that loop all the way and come back to nature? This is a hard hitting track with no nonsense drums and top shelf sound design, but it’s not afraid to dip a toe into a goofy sample and let it breathe without dominating.

  • TWC 37

    CFCF – Life is Perfecto

    There’s an air of fellow French Canadians M83 on CFCF’s album Memoryland even though CFCF never hits their arena rock highs, a smeared nostalgia that fizzles out of view if you try to pin it down. This song is like jungle-flavored La Croix. It’s a lovely ambient-ish indie rock-ish bubbler with juuuuust enough chopped breaks to remind you of full-fledged jungle programming. Jungle is only a few years older than the sound Simon Reynolds termed hauntology (“jungle” pre-drum and bass peaks around 1994-95, Boards of Canada came out with Music has the Right to Children in ‘98), but CFCF takes the full hauntological lens to jungle drums and indie rock guitars to great effect. It works so well because it isn’t jungle as we know it, it’s not a young producer making tracks to fit seamlessly into youtube rip of a Peshay set. It’s jungle’s ghost smoothied down with all of CFCF’s myriad touchpoints into something new.

    LCD Soundsystem – North American Scum

    I’ve been kind of taken with LCD Soundsystem recently. The band has an absurd amount of legit hits, from every phase of their career no less. Still, there’s a not-quite settled feeling listening to them, like a relationship you’re worried might be more on the rocks than you realize. I think I’m drawn to them because they feel like a band to whom there is no analog in 2025. Despite James Murphy sometimes seeming like the only member their music is unavoidably band music. Despite structuring like a rock band and releasing what are effectively punky pop songs they are undeniably a dance act. Despite a fine layer of smarm they are essentially sincere in their lyrics. The closest contemporary band I can think of is Squid, who are most definitely a rock band with little dancefloor aspiration beyond a good thrash. I don’t know if conditions exist to spawn a new LCD Soundsystem, nor do I think identifying as “a new LCD Soundsystem” would be an artistically successful choice (hello, the Dare), but a new act who learns their lessons could be a breath of fresh air.

    Fontaines DC – A Hero’s Death (Soulwax Remix)

    Life ain’t always empty! I can’t tell if Fontaines DC are sincere with their silver linings positivity on this track, but I appreciate it nonetheless. I’ve yet to figure out the hype around Fontaines DC, but I can’t deny that “A Hero’s Death” is good in both versions. Fontaines’ original hits higher highs, Soulwax slows it down to find a smoother and more mixable groove. “Buy yourself a flower every hundredth hour” is a great line AND a great piece of advice, and I’m always down for a Soulwax remix — speaking of groups that make the most out of the borderland of rock and rave.

    The Femcels – He Needs Me

    Stunningly, this is the Femcels’ debut single. From what I can tell, the duo (Gabriella and Rowan) are London-based college students and fashion models (Vogue, The Face, etc.) who are internet-pilled enough to name themselves “The Femcels” but also internet-poisoned enough to be neocities kids with an endearingly cryptic social media presence. Whatever their lives are like though they have announced their presence with an absolute scorcher of a track. Every single part of “He Needs Me” is an absolute blast to listen to, from the start-and-stop rave-up of the punky, chiptune-y instrumentals to the joltingly sincere bridges to the chant chorus but still none of those hold a candle to the jaw-dropping insanity of the verses. Lyrically, “He Needs Me” is a tragedy. Delusion tears us from the highest highs (“He needs me! Aaaa!”) to a fragile baseline portending total collapse (“I’m just crazy / You’re just crazy / yeah nice”) via some of the most comical bars ever put to tape. “Sometimes I trip over in front of him, because it humanizes me.” “He must be really busy like, eating burgers and stuff.” “I know that he’s had like, so much skateboarding to do recently.” “He Needs Me” takes you from losing your shit dancing one second to losing your shit laughing the next. I cannot wait to hear what the Femcels put out next, because this is one of the best debuts I’ve ever heard.

    The Rapture – Echoes (DFA Remix)

    You know what else that Femcels cut is? Honest-to-goodness dance punk. With all due respect to the Rapture, this is a Femcels blog now. Sorry. “He Needs Me” was the catalyst of this show, the tracklist was built with it at the core. The Rapture are a very different kind of dance punk (unmistakably New York, unmistakably DFA, unmistakably 2000s) but they and their DFA affiliates are the last time I can remember music that was so dance and so punk. Much to my delight the DFA remix takes “Echoes” to full disco jam territory, something that the Femcels have not touched yet but I have hope they will in time. To break away from the central theme of the blog (scandal!) – I picked up this record over the weekend from the excellent Speck’s Records and Tapes in North Portland to further my light delusion of becoming a vinyl DJ, and I have to applaud DFA records for their commitment to only pressing good records. Maybe it shouldn’t be that surprising given James Murphy’s commitment to the form as expressed via Despacio Sound System, but even this label-filler three track remix compilation is pressed to heavy, solid vinyl. I have full albums that cost 7 times the price that are on pringles compared to the brutalist slabs I have from DFA. Shoutouts to good quality control.­

    Babymorocco – France

    Alright enough about music formats, back to the REAL focus of this blog: endless yammering about “He Needs Me” by the Femcels. Did you know “He Needs Me” isn’t actually the Femcels first credited song on Spotify? No, that honor goes to the intro from Babymorocco’s recent album Amour, in which they team up with iKeda and “totally not dimes square 100 gecs” duo Frost Children to bring Babymorocco across the threshold from the mundane world into the rave world a la Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. I had put off listening to Babymorocco for whatever reason (most likely his stage persona, which we will get to) but I had to do the research on my new favorite band, and don’t you know it I was sleeping heavy on Mr. Morocco. Amour is a deeply fun record that draws from the same hyperbolically sexualized aesthetic as Babymorocco’s social media presence (I genuinely don’t think I’ve seen a photo of him where he’s not flexing. Combine that genuinely impressive muscle mass with his facial expressions and puzzling choice in glasses and the overall effect is something like a college freshman who arrived on campus and realized he had 24/7 gym access for the first time in his life. His commitment to the bit is commendable, even if it did lead me to [foolishly] write him off as fratty the first time I saw him). “France” ended up as the selection for the tracklist largely because I could play it on the radio with minimal censorship, but the Justice-inflected synth work and goofy lyrics about taking the Flixbus to the title country succeed on their own terms.

    Alice Longyu Gao – Kanpai

    “He Needs Me” also reminds me of the sizzling hyperpop scene that reached a creative apex in 2021, particularly the melting pot of neon oddballs who revolve around the Goop House collective. Alice Longyu Gao is the most energetic personality to emerge from that moment, both on record and in her captivating stage presence. “Kanpai” is a glittering dancefloor destroyer that weaponizes Alice’s self-confidence to manifest celebrity. I saw Alice perform in a club basement in Somerville, MA in front of generously 150 people, but when she puts herself on a Mount Rushmore with “Britney, Lindsay, Amanda Bynes[…] Taylor, Drake, Kardashian tribe” you can’t help but believe she’s already there.

    Plus One – Bonk

    “Bonk” was one of my favorite tracks of 2024, and a great example of a structural trend present in some of the year’s biggest dance tracks like Flight FM by Joy Orbison and Honey by Caribou which I’ve been referring to as rattlers. By song structure, rattlers resemble American buildup-drop (ahem) EDM/brostep/whatever, but strip out the grating grandiosity and self-insistence. Instead of generating tension artificially with trance snare rolls or whatever the hell metal guitars Excision uses, rattlers gently tease the “drop” section then slide into it with an abbreviated buildup at most. It’s a similar deployment of tension and release as the buildup/drop structure, but in a way that’s less disruptive to the flow of the dancefloor. “Bonk” is a textbook rattler, with a/b sections that are similar enough to flow smoothly but different enough that the extra oomph of the b section is constructively jarring, like afterburners kicking you to a new top speed.

    100 gecs – xXXi_wud_nvrstøp_ÜXXx (Remix) [feat. Tommy Cash & Hannah Diamond]

    Speaking of 2021 hyperpop… This remix is the highlight of 100 gecs and the tree of clues. It’s my favorite track from 1000 gecs flipped by two people with some of my favorite voices in hyperpop over a style of track I wish both of them would make more of. It’s bouncy, danceable, funny, unpredictable and referential without feeling chained to the past, all of the qualities that make hyperpop so appealing to me. It’s not the most innovative song by any means, nor do I think it will be remembered as well as some of the genre’s more pioneering and out there cuts, but it’s always fun to listen to, and that’s an achievement to be proud of.