Category: Dance

C2C – Down The Road

“This passes the “dancing in my chair” test so, so well.”

Tom: A bit of introduction here. C2C are not the southeastern rail company, thankfully: they’re a French turntable group. So their shtick is to take old tracks — in this case, Mississippi bluesman Eddie Cusic’s You Don’t Have To Go — and shift them into something… else. And this is one hell of a remix.

Tom: This passes the “dancing in my chair” test so, so well.

Tim: Hmm. Well, I like the thing with the skateboard and the tyre, that was quite good.

Tom: It’s already reached number 1 in France; it probably won’t do quite as well in the UK but, bloody hell, it deserves to. The new album seems just as promising. Really, I’ve got nothing to add to this: I just bloody love it.

Tim: I know reading YouTube comments is often described as the first step to madness, but I do like the bluntness of the guy who just wrote “this is honestly the worst sound ive ever heard”. It’s not that bad – I think I’m just having trouble trying to work out what it’s meant to be.

Tom: You remember Mint Royale’s Singin’ In The Rain remix? It’s a bit like that. Hell, it’s even got a boots-and-cats beat going on in the background if you can’t quite get it.

Tim: The loud bit in the second half is quite listenable, but the rest of it just seems a little uninterpretable. Hmm.

Tom: Speak for yourself. I’ll keep dancing in my chair.

Avicii feat. Aloe Blacc – Wake Me Up

“Country music?”

Tim: Last time we reviewed an Avicii track you said his style was starting to sound a bit stale. I don’t think you’ll say that this time.

Tom: “Save tonight, and fight the break of dawn” … just me?

Tim: Couldn’t find a ridiculous cover version for that one, I presume?

Tom: No, but I did find a useless cover version.

Tim: Blimey, Danny Saucedo’s come a long way since then. But I think we’ve got a bit distracted. What was I going to say? Ah, yes. You’ll need a fairly substantial remix before this’ll get played out in any big clubs, I’d imagine, because for the most part this is, well, country music?

Tom: The presence of an acoustic guitar doesn’t make it country music.

Tim: True, but merge that with the vocal stylings and you’re not far off.

Tom: And admittedly I did expect a much bigger bass drop after that build* — this isn’t a club floorfiller, but it is something I very much want to add to my playlist. This is music for radio play, for listening to, for putting on the inevitable ‘chilled dance’ compilation at the end of the year — and there’ll be a big banging remix for the clubs.

* Have you ever seen how those are made? 5m36 into this video explains it all.

Tim: The chorus is fine, and the vocal could work well on top of a dance beat, but let be honest you’d have a difficult time dancing feet off the ground, hands in the air to that guitar business.

Tom: Speak for yourself: this gets filed under ‘euphoric’ for me, and it’ll work very nicely indeed with a remix.

Tim: Oh, a remix, absolutely. Guitar on its own, as it is – not so much.

Tom: I very, very much like this.

Tim: Oh, it’s certainly not a bad track – it just doesn’t really blend at all so I’m not sure what to make of it. Could be a huge hit, but then it could also flop disastrously. Hope it’s not the latter.

Vinsten – Luckiest Girl (Bassflow Remake)

MODERATELY THUMPING.

Tim: Last summer, a singer called Vinsten came out with this, which was alright – not bad Scandinavian electro stuff, but not hugely exciting. Recently, though, a producer with the somewhat silly name Bassflow but the somewhat excellent back catalogue of Euphoria played around with it and quite improved it, and now it’s getting a proper release.

Tom: It took me a while to parse that sentence, but when I worked it out: hmm. That’s promising.

Tim: Glad you think so.

Tim: BANGING.

Tom: Or at least MODERATELY THUMPING.

Tim: It is arms in the air, jump around, take some drugs, enjoy yourself type dance music that an upcoming summer season could do with just wonderfully. The verses still aren’t huge, but when the chorus hits and it goes off properly it is ALL IN and there’s nothing you do to stop it.

Tom: Hmm. Are your speakers a bit louder than mine? It’s playing its hand a bit more coyly than that: to continue your all-in poker analogy, it’s certainly at least checking until after the flop.

Tim: Well, except wait for the next verse when it goes away again but after that it is BACK and it is STAYING and it is VERY WELCOME. I’m SHOUTING at the moment and I DON’T KNOW WHY.

Tom: I’m trying to figure out a full house / house music poker pun, but it isn’t quite working.

Tim: Really? Because I can think of one slight one that might work. It is obscure, I’ll admit.

Tom: I don’t think poker and pop music go well toge…

Tim: Think, now – are you really sure you want to say that?

Tom: Hmm. Never mind.

Tim: And, there it is.

Armin van Buuren feat. Trevor Guthrie – This Is What It Feels Like

“I’m looking for a BANGING CHOON.”

Tom: He’s gone all commercial.

Tom: Okay, let’s get the video out of the way first: I must be getting old, because I was more interested in the Airstream trailer and Googie architecture than I was about the blatant pandering to teenage boys. Also, Armin van Buuren looks a bit he’s a Dutch version of Pat Sharp.

Tim: There, I must agree with you. You’re getting old.

Tom: This is the first single off the just-released new album, which is called “Intense”. Ironically, that’s something you can’t call this track: it’s no more intense trance than anything else in the pop charts. I know the lead single has to be mainstream, but blimey: this is taking it a bit far.

Tim: Really? What were you looking for?

Tom: From the first single of an Armin van Buuren album, in the lead-up to summer? I’m looking for a BANGING CHOON.

Tim: Well, alright, it’s not hugely intense, but it’s a perfectly good dance track. Nothing all that special, but following Chicane & Ferry Corsten, and Rivaz, that would take quite a bit. Really, what were you looking for?

Tom: A CHOON. Still, that’s what remixes are for, I suppose: and this’ll still get a cheer when he plays it on some vacation island this summer.

Empire Of The Sun – Alive

“It’s been a good week for feel good songs, hasn’t it?”

Tim: Australian dance group you may remember from a couple of singles a few years back, but probably not; anyway, here’s their new single.

Tim: It’s been a good week for feel good songs, hasn’t it? Well, aside from that Snoop Crocodile tripe on Monday, anyway. We’ve had everybody dancing, everybody whistling, and now every minute is spent feeling alive. What a super feeling.

Tom: I appreciate the lyrics, but for whatever reason I’m just not getting that feeling from this particular song. There’s a lot of high-frequency hiss – I don’t think that’s the compression – and not much else of note that I can hear. Yes, the guitar after the middle eight is good, and that final chorus might get me jumping a bit, but there’s so much more that could be done here.

Tim: Hmm. There I will say simply: you’re a bit wrong. I suppose the hissiness is down to taste, but I think it’s a pretty good track, all round. There’s a slight issue with the lyrics similar to yesterday, but I’m not going to completely repeat myself, so I’ll just say that I for one would certainly rather feel alive than feel dead and leave it at that.

The vocals grate on me a bit in their harsher moments, but the dance-ness of it is pretty much undeniable – that chorus hits, everybody jumps up and down, there’s no real alternative, which I reckon is just fine. Who knows, they might even start singing along, which would be just lovely, as I do like a dancefloor that isn’t full of people who think they’re corpses.

Tom: So say we all.

Tim: Oh, and a strange thing: should you, for whatever reason, wish to hear an instrumental version of this song stretched to fill three hours rather than three minutes, you can.

Tom: I don’t know why anyone would want to do that.

Tim: No. But at least there’s the option to.

Nicky Romero & NERVO – Like Home

MORE.

Tom: Piano dance with vocals. A cracking intro. It’s going to take a long time to build. A very long time. Long enough that you’ll want it to be properly BANGING when it kicks in. And…

Tom: OH YES DOES IT DELIVER. For a few seconds. And then it stops.

Tim: I don’t know – you’ve got a decent twenty seconds in there, which is a fairly standard post-chorus, especially when you’ve got a motorbike on top of it.

Tom: I have no idea what to say about this one. It’s nearly all build, slowly edging its way towards being massive, but never staying there for nearly long enough.

Tim: I suppose you’re right – to keep people dancing it does need more.

Tom: This desperately needs a remix. It desperately needs MORE BASS.

Tim: Or just looping that last minute a couple of times.

Tom: Hell, even a dubstep breakdown would do well here – they’ve gone out of fashion again now, though. It just needs MORE.

Rivaz – Colors

“Crikey, that’s not bad at all.”

Tim: Two days ago we had a superb dance track; today we have one that certainly thinks it’s superb. Arguably the most confident dance track of the week; the SoundCloud blurb from this Italian DJ says that “with the plethora of tracks being released on a weekly basis, it’s often difficult to cut through the clutter.” This is true, but it goes on. “So when you hear a track that makes you stop, listen and feel something, you know there’s a magical moment – like the first time you heard ‘Bromance,’ or for us long time punters ‘Children’ or ‘Sunchyme’.”

Now that sounds fairly self-confident.

Tom: That’s not just a bold claim, that’s a claim etched in thousand-point bold font on the side of the White Cliffs of Dover. Children and Sunchyme weren’t just something special, they were generation-defining tracks. It’s a fair bet that Bromance is becoming something similar. It’s one hell of a claim.

Tim: BUT IS IT JUSTIFIED?

Tim: Why, yes, it bloody is.

Tom: Crikey, that’s not bad at all.

Tim: It’s a long time since I’ve heard a dance track that’s really made me pay attention to it, and I could write quite a lot about it. But I won’t; what I’ll do instead (and this may seem lazy) is copy and paste the rest of the blurb, because, over-hyped as these things typically are, this time it’s about right.

“Truly uplifting and euphoric, the track lifts your spirits and takes you into that magical place that is light and full of happiness and energy. He even manages to bring in some rock guitar riffs without it sounding angry or aggressive, keeping it pretty and dreamy. Sure, there are the expected builds to electro and a few stadium house stabs, but the sound is so fresh and optimistic feeling that it stands out amongst the sea of clones.”

Tom: I don’t know if all that hype is justified. It’s a cracking track, don’t get me wrong, it’s probably going to be one of the anthems of this summer and end up in the background of every BBC Three teenage-documentary show next year. But is it a Bromance? Or a Children, or a Sunchyme? It’s too early to make that call.

Tim: Too early, definitely, but I don’t think I’d bet big money against it.

Tom: Anything else you want to copy and paste?

Tim: This is the kind of track that makes me want to get up and dance. Immediately. An entire album like this, please. Also immediately.

Tom: Fair enough.

Chicane & Ferry Corsten feat. Christian Burns – One Thousand Suns

“Makes me want to get up and dance. Immediately.”

Tom: Bloody hell. Chicane. Ferry Corsten. Working together. How did I not hear about this earlier?

Tim: No idea, but I didn’t either.

Tom: Actually, the reason I didn’t hear about it earlier is that the original track got released last year – and while it’s a gorgeous bit of uplifting EDM, it didn’t make much of a splash elsewhere. So they’ve done the same as the track we reviewed yesterday – and given it some vocals.

Tim: Ooh, that’s very nice indeed; it still is a lovely bit of uplifting EDM.

Tom: I’ve gone for the Soundprank Vocal Remix here, on the grounds that it’s more to my tastes than the original. Your mileage may vary, but it it does, then you’re wrong.

Tim: Haha, lovely. Although that version does have a quiet bit that the vocals belong in; to be honest in this mix it seems like they’ve just been thrown on top, rather than being an actual part of the tune. It’s not a bad thing – they’re perfectly good, fitting, and they don’t detract – but they seem to come with a sense of separation, and I slightly prefer the original for that reason.

Tom: This is the kind of track that makes me want to get up and dance. Immediately. An entire album like this, please. Also immediately.

Tim: Immediately.

John Dahlbäck feat. Agnes – Life (Diamonds In The Dark)

“Well, that’s a lot better than the original.”

Tim: About a year ago, Swedish DJ John Dahlbäck brought out Life, a dance track that didn’t take the world by storm but was still fairly good. Twelve months later, there’s Agnes doing some vocal work and a video to wrap it all up nicely.

Tom: Well, that’s a lot better than the original.

Tim: Indeed – it’s safe to say the original somewhat pales in comparison, and it kind of underlines the fact that while there are lots of good instrumental dance track out there, many could be made a lot better by sticking a vocalist on.

Tom: As Avicii proved so well with ‘Seek Bromance‘.

Tim: We still have the decent dance tune below it, but now also some good singing on the top. Most of the time you can appreciate the pleasant melodies, the decent crafting and melding of the two, and the picturesque shots in the video. And when you’re drunk, you can sing along with the howling and wailing bits. Something for everyone.

Tom: It’s not a floor-filler as far as I can tell, but it’s not a floor-killer either.

Tim: Oh, and that annoying bit at the end is a throwback to the original with the two minutes of intro and outro for mixing. Less annoying if you think about it, though, as it’s now the bit that a radio DJ will talk over and not ruin a chorus.

Tom: “You’re listening to DANCE FM. How’s YOUR Saturday going? Text and let us know, we want to hear from YOU. PLEASE. We’re DESPERATE.”

Tim: Reminds me of a DJ who filled in for Dev on the Radio 1 early breakfast show for one week a while back; text-in theme was, on Monday, the ever-inventive game of hairdresser puns. You know, A Cut Above, Curl Up and Dye, etc. Because that was so brilliant, Tuesday was fish and chip places, Wednesday was kebab shops, and by Friday we’d sunk to tanning salons. “We’re going to start you off with Tanerife, but what have you got?” Answer, going by what was read out over the next hour and the increasing anguish in his voice: absolutely nothing. He wasn’t invited back.

Paulina Starborn – Can You Feel My Heartbeat

Straight off a 2003-era Ministry of Sound compilation CD

Tim: It’s above average generic dance music time!

Tim: This is, pretty much, straight off a 2003-era Ministry of Sound compilation CD – the Annual ones they do which back then were brilliant but now are full of crap like Chris Brown and Wiley. Moan over, this is very good.

Tom: Agreed – it sounds almost retro by now, like a track that got held over for ten years.

Tim: Summer-style Eurotrance, kind of heard it all before – is the backing a fairly clear rip-off of Inna’s two-and-a-half year old track Amazing? Why yes, yes I do believe it is, but so what.

Tom: I don’t hear a close match there myself, but then there’s an argument that pretty much everyone in the ‘generic dance music’ industry’s been ripping everyone else off for years.

Tim: Very true, and I suppose a lack of innovation is, in theory, bad for the music industry as a whole BLAH BLAH BLAH but it does in this case provide a very listenable and danceable track.

Tom: The music video seems somewhat awkward – why is it in a bowling alley? Why does it seem deserted? And why is everyone dancing just a little bit awkwardly? Still – can’t complain about the music.

Tim: Indeed – the music’s good, I’m happy, we’re sorted.