Category: Dance

Martin Garrix – Together

“I really wish I could jump around and dance to this.”

Tim: Tom, my neck still hurts from when I went trampolining over the weekend, and that annoys me.

Tom: You did land face first.

Tim: Well, let’s chalk it up to lessons for life: don’t attempt a somersault unless you’re confident you won’t injure your head and face and neck. Anyway, we’re getting distracted. Thing is, I really wish I could jump around and dance to this.

Tim: Swedish House Mafia style music has dropped away recently, which is very much a shame, because I’d take this over That Genre any day.

Tom: The thing is, it’s almost exactly the same. Dial down the intensity a bit, change the synth pads, and suddenly there are coconuts everywhere. And yet, now tropical house is so overplayed, this sounds like a breath of fresh air.

Tim: You could make that argument for a lot of things – subgenres are always closely related, and it’s the finesse (in this case, toned down beats and steel drum synths) that make tropical what it is. Here, that’s all gone, and as far as I’m concerned it’s better for it.

I could mention a criticism or two – structure’s odd, with it being split into two identical halves meaning it’s over far soon that it feels it ought to be, even if it has played out long enough, and the gap between the two halves is just long enough to be uncomfortably disconcerting.

Tom: Yes, that’s true: I do wonder if the requirement to have everything at or around 3-5 minutes sometimes stifles creativity. Chuck this in at two minutes in the middle of a set, and it’d be fine.

Tim: Other than that, though, this is great. I don’t know if I’m saying that just because it’s fresh and new, but I’ve missed dance music like this being released. And I love having it around.

Saturday Flashback: Dan Black – Symphonies

“England had just drawn with the USA in the 2010 World Cup.”

Tim: When we looked at Ida LaFontaine’s track this week, you pointed out that the backing beat of Umbrella was a standard GarageBand loop. I remembered a bit later that I actually knew that, because I noticed it when this sublime piece of work appeared.

Tom: Oh good heavens, that is the Umbrella beat, isn’t it? No-one else can use it for anything else now. That said: good choir sounds, good strings; maybe a little downbeat but it’s a nice track.

Tim: And that’s been one of my favourite tracks for quite a long time, largely because of the exact moment it reminds me of – England had just drawn with the USA in the 2010 World Cup.

Tom: That is a very specific memory. It’s not like it was a big moment.

Tim: No, but I’d been watching it in a bar with a bunch of other British folk I worked with (in a Canadian call centre), and it was a fairly dull match so after that we grabbed a load of beer and a variety of savoury snacks and spent a lovely afternoon on a very sunny and warm beach, with music like this playing. Good times.

Tom: I’ve got tracks like that: I’m fond of them because of what’s associated with them, not because of the track itself.

Tim: Great times, in fact, and that’s why I love this track.

Seeb feat. Jacob Banks – What Do You Love

“This is going to be good, surely?”

Tom: I’d have skipped past it, but I recognise that name: Seeb are the Norwegian production team who turned Mike Posner’s whinefest into a big club hit. This is going to be good, surely?

Tom: Yes. Yes it is.

Tim: It is indeed.

Tom: I’m not entirely convinced by those pitch-shifted vocals, but it seems to be Seeb’s trademark and I can deal with it, because the build up into that chorus — the first of the two hooks — is just absolutely glorious.

Tim: That whole chorus is good – I wasn’t sure at first on the wisdom of repeating the same line four times, but then I realised it was all there just to drum it right in, so that come the second chorus, with the more sensible two occurrences, we could chant right along with it.

Tom: I was clapping along and dancing in my seat on the first listen. I immediately hit replay at the end. For me: this is a good track.

Tim: Track: yes. Video: unforgivable. If you’re having a video focusing on a line being drawn, moving around, it’s basically the law that at the end you pull out and show a finished picture, that you’ve cunningly been drawing all along. I realised it was probably going to be this way when it started again for the second verse, mind, and definitely when it all went 3D, but still, NAUGHTY.

Galantis & Hook N Sling – Love On Me

“This song is just so…fun.”

Tim: TOM! I’m so happy, because guess what genre the best released song of last Friday ventures into?

Tom: Rather brilliantly, this has the full lyrics in the description of the YouTube video. They’re four lines long.

Tim: Yes, it’s not the most lyrically complex track around; doesn’t mean it’s not brilliant, though. Galantis have had a few tracks out since Peanut Butter Jelly, but none of them have got me in quite the same way that this does. Hook N Sling is a producer based in L.A.; I don’t know what he brings to the table, but regardless, this song is just so…fun.

Tom: I think this might be because it sounds like a lot of other fun songs. Nothing specific that I can pick out: it’s just like someone handed a CD of fun pop songs to an AI, gave it some steel drums, and went with whatever came out. Actually, in a few years someone will probably be able to do that.

Tim: And it may well sound better than a good number of the songs we hear. Ah, the future. But in the present, I can’t think of a better way to describe this than fun, really – I hear it, I want to dance. As I write this, it’s getting on for eleven p.m. and I have to be awake at half six, but I don’t care. The song’s been on repeat for fifteen minutes, and I don’t want to stop playing it. It’s got a great chorus, and an even better post-chorus.

Tom: That euphoric build out of the middle eight stands out to me: it’s straight out of the textbook. But then if it didn’t work, it wouldn’t be in the textbook.

Tim: That quick drum rhythm under “we’ll be singing”? YES WE WILL, AND DANCING.

Tom: Maybe you shouldn’t do these reviews so late at night.

Tim: No, best time, because I get emotional. For example, those steel drum tones almost brought tears of joy to my eyes. Man, imagine if I could drag this ludicrous idea out until Christmas.

Project 46 & Felicity – Falling

“Welcome back Tom! How do you fancy a BANGER?”

Tim: Welcome back Tom! How do you fancy a BANGER to get right on with?

Tom: That’s the best offer I’ve had in three weeks. And thanks to Adam for keeping things going while I was out of commission. Who’s this then?

Tim: Well, ‘Felicity’ is entirely unGooglable, and there is precisely no biographical information on any of her social medias, but various tweets indicate that if she isn’t Swedish she at least lives in Sweden; Project 46, meanwhile, are easily discoverable as Canadian and provide the vocals. That’s the admin out of the way, so here’s the track (with apologies for the couple of f-bombs that are dropped).

Tim: See what I mean? BANGER, and not one I would have the remotest problem dancing to. It has more or less everything it needs to be a hit, to be honest – the big beat, the decent melody, the half-arsed lyrics that if we’re honest are only there so it appeals to more than just fans of thumping beats.

Tom: Agreed. This is one of those surprisingly good tracks that you’d find in the middle of a Ministry of Sound compilation — the sort that you’ve never heard of, but which make you sit up in the middle of an otherwise undifferentiated pile of “thump thump thump”. It’s even got that standard euphoric-build three quarters of the way through it.

Tim: It almost certainly won’t be a hit – for starters, it’s off an EP entitled “Summer Feels” which is enough to make any sensible person run a mile rather than have it lurking forever it in their streaming history – but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it. Enjoy it a lot, in fact. Let’s DANCE.

Tom: It’s good to be back, Tim.

Mike Posner – In The Arms Of A Stranger (Brian Kierulf Remix)

“Almost all of the goodness.”

Tim: You’ll remember Mike Posner – he was the one who last summer took a pill in Ibiza, and before that thought that we thought we were cooler than him. You’ll also remember that last Friday it emerged that putting a tropical beat on a piano based track doesn’t always improve matters. On the other hand, since it’s Friday, let’s hear how it can.

Tom: That intro sounds ever so slightly like the Macarena.

Tim: The original, found here, is an actually pretty good track, and happily, almost all of the goodness – melody, vocals (front and back) – makes its way through to here.

Tom: It also loses the ridiculous “bum, bum, bum” introductions from the original, because, look, if you’re doing vocals like that, maybe use a syllable that isn’t “bum”? I realise it doesn’t have the same meaning in US English, but it’s the equivalent of having a choir sing “ass, ass, ass”.

But anyway, well, all the good stuff makes it through.

Tim: Not only that, but unlike yesterday the stuff that’s been added to the remix serves to make the song even better, as I see it anyway. A good beat for you to chomp on a pineapple to, some gentle marimba stylings and all in all, a nice mental image on lying on a beach, shaded by some gently wavering palm fronds, in the arms of the aforementioned stranger.

Tom: That’s a very specific mental image, Tim.

Tim: But isn’t it a nice one?

Porter Robinson & Madeon – Shelter

“Repetitive but fun to listen to.”

Tom: Our reader, James, sends in this, saying “it sounds exactly like you might expect… tad repetitive and not lyrically adventurous, but what makes up for it is how fun it is to listen to”.

Tom: I do like it when people who send in tracks do the review for us. He’s not wrong.

Tim: No, it’s a good track all round. Might not be any particular moments to get massively excited about, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Tom: To be fair, ‘repetitive but fun to listen to’ sums up a lot of popular EDM. This seems to be a cut above most, though: it’s well composed and well produced. Sure, it’s by the numbers, but as ever from these two, they’re really good numbers.

Tim: Absolutely – nothing to complain about here.

Saturday Flashback: Moby – Extreme Ways (Bourne’s Ultimatum)

“Smaller differences that make it my preferred version”

Tim: I’ve been watching all the Jason Bourne films recently, since there’s a new one out and I want to be up to date, as you do. They all use Extreme Ways in the closing credits, and, FUN FACT, from the third one on they’ve got Moby to redo it each time, fiddling it slightly. Such as this, my favourite of the bunch.

Tim: You may want to refresh your memory of the original, since it wasn’t one of his best performing releases.

Tom: No, I don’t. Because this song means something very different to me: it’s the “reveal-music” from the brilliant, smart Korean reality-game show The Genius. That opening string sample means something big is about to go down (that video’s a minor spoiler, obviously).

Tim: This one still uses that opening string sample, and still that same percussion sample, but there are smaller differences that make it my preferred version – for starters the piano line the kicks off the main line is funked up a notch, the vocals are less distorted and there’s a female vocalist joining in later.

Tom: I’m so used to the original that I’m not sure it improves it: there’s certainly more, but is that a good thing?

Tim: For me yes, because of the most noticeable thing: the drums are brought in a whole lot more prominently. Originally they just kicked in at some point underneath the main line, but here everything drops off and we get a “right, let’s GO” moment.

Tom: For me, that first string sample has always been the “let’s GO” moment, but that’s because of the context I find it in.

Tim: Yes, but like you said, they’re an “about to happen” noise – that drum intro is an “it’s ON”. The rolling strings come along, the vocals follow soon after, and we’re know we’re off to a good start. Or, if you’re in the cinema, a good ending.

John Lundvik – All About The Games

“I can’t help thinking that we’ve heard it all before.”

Tim: The Olympics are in full swing, which can only mean one thing: it musical cash-in time! Here’s the official song of Team Sweden, because apparently that’s a thing now.

Tom: This had better not be a Meghan Trainor cover.

Tim: Oh, that’d be wonderful, but no I’m afraid it isn’t.

Tim: And, well, if this wasn’t stuffing SPORTS OLYMPICS LOOK I’M ABOUT WINNING AND TAKING PART I’d mark this off as an Eric Prydz album track, largely because of the Pjanoo ripoff going on through the chorus (because surely no serious dance producer would listen to that without thinking “oh hang on”).

Tom: It’s uncomfortably close, isn’t it? I assume they’ve run it past the lawyers, because let’s be honest, anything to do with the Olympics gets run past a lot of lawyers.

Tim: It’s alright, I suppose, but I can’t help feeling that way more effort has been put into it than it actually deserves. For all that’s going on in there, I can’t help thinking that we’ve just, well, heard it all before, and not just because of the aforementioned chorus line.

Tom: Let’s not forget that the official song for London 2012 was genuinely original, emotional and stirring. This… isn’t.

Tim: It also doesn’t help that it does sound past its sell by date – an Olympic tie-in track should sound current, and this style of EDM’s been and gone. Distorted vocal samples and light tropical beats are where you want to be right now, not EDM from London 2012. I get the intention; I really don’t get the end product, though.

Galavant – Lightweight

“The style John Lundvik should have been aiming for yesterday.”

Tim: Galavant are a Swedish production who have very occasionally featured here before, and today we have a prime example of the style John Lundvik should have been aiming for yesterday. Pay attention, John, because you’ll no doubt want to use this come Tokyo 2020.

Tim: And I think that’s a really good instrumental chorus line.

Tom: I think the first half of it is excellent, but that odd, double speed section afterwards just sounds a little bit unpleasant.

Tim: It’s taken me sometime to get on board with this style, but I am all in right now, and this is a great example of using it without thumping beats underneath, without it becoming a bit of a racket and sounding overcompressed.

Tom: I know we spend a lot of time complaining about that style, the same way we spent a lot of time complaining about dubstep five years ago, but that’s because it sounds bloody awful.

Tim: See, I’ve made the switch already. As long it’s it’s not just loud from the melody, down from an excessive drumbeat, I’m fine with it, and here that’s what we’ve got.

The vocals surrounding it are good as well, and the intermediary verse beats, but that major synth line is where it’s really at, and is very good being there. I LIKE it.