It’s normal to get disenchanted with dance music culture from time to time, but occasionally I fear I might fall out of love with it altogether if I don’t elbow my way through all the noise. My Instagram algorithm has recently been serving me really dubious content, so I’m actively trying to avoid watching “DJ reels”. When I do, and I consequently want to make sense of what I’m seeing from a critical perspective, I inadvertently fall into the ‘old man yells at cloud’ trap. I’m neither old nor dissatisfied, just genuinely surprised at how unrelatable the portrayal of “the scene” is becoming, and how detached it is from a certain conception of dance music culture that I was brought up with – not in the 90s, mind, but in the mid-2010s, which now feel like ages ago. It all circles back to the sentiment shared by DJ/producer Matrixxman in a lighthearted tweet last year; that DJing is becoming increasingly embarrassing.
It’s hard to stay focused on all the good aspects when there’s all this weird content being shoved down our throats. Of course you can convince yourself as much as you want that what you’re seeing is just algo fodder, and a contrived presentation of “your culture” optimised for social media. Yet we need to accept that for many younger people, perhaps the vast majority, these reels are perceived as realistic, genuine representations of how the experience of raving should be. It moulds their expectations, but most of all it becomes a guideline on how to behave and act properly. Why do certain shots from “raves” look like leaked GTA VI footage from a techno club with perfectly synced NPCs? There’s a performative aspect to it all. Their attractive moves bring to mind the image of a techno panopticon where your every action is analysed, assessed, rated and ranked by the observer. You must never break character, or else. It’s uncanny in a way, almost like something you’d expect from a highly sophisticated AI video generator. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. So many videos on how to dance and dress properly have been circulating in recent years that they’ve created these new masses of ravers whose aesthetic compass has been codified to the last tiny detail.
CS + KremeThe Butterfly Drinks the Tears of the TortoiseThe Trilogy Tapes
Many seem to forget about the beauty that can be found when seeing experimentalism as a fun, thrill-seeking endeavour. The third album by the elusive Australian duo CS + Kreme, following the magic of Orange (TTT, 2022), seems to emerge exactly from this exploratory urge. The fruits of jam-inspired sonic adventurism that aspire to transcend the known, their inimitable expressions take the form of auteurial, trans-genre, inward-looking “dark psychedelia”. It’s purposefully lyrical, structurally protean and open-ended – a fluctuating sonic tapestry of influences old and new, familiar but intangible. The Butterfly Drinks The Tears Of The Tortoise reaches for the outer edges of folk mysticism, eccentric chamber music and industrial-indebted Coil-esque electronica with a melancholy shimmer. Its inventive vocal manipulations and the tangled micro modulations of synthesised sounds, counterpointing the strings and guitar textures, conjure an aura of contemporaneity. Yet there’s an atemporal quality to their music. Rhythmic structures and murky melodic patterns reveal themselves gradually, and soon disappear, reminding me of Jarmusch’s shawdowplay-like dream sequences from Perfect Days. Their songs possess a haiku-like quality, evoking rippled, blurred images of places and faces that seep into the listener’s subconscious. CS + Kreme plunge you into the uncharted realms of your psyche, as if stepping into a river, getting engulfed by torrents and letting go, until you’re finally released into the sea.
Charles.A.DWest Pontoon Bridge100% silk
While certain albums astonish me with their singularity, West Pontoon Bridge resounds with me for opposite reasons: its familiarity, simplicity, relatability. I can’t really put my finger on where I draw the line – why I cringe at the sound of certain artists regurgitating all too familiar ideas, and applaud others who do basically the same. Perhaps it’s Charles.A.D. (aka Hiroyuki Tanaka)’s vocation as a farmer which captivates my imagination. I spent countless days on my grandparents’ farm as a child, so I can relate to the cyclical nature of both farm chores and music production, observing your plants/ideas as they grow, flourish, ripen, and are harvested. The album distils the essence of deep house and meditative dub techno to its basic constituents. Think of it in terms of Sinichi Atobe’s dubby minimalism meets Wamdue Kids’ emotional depth. With its yearning tones, stripped-back arrangements and silky smooth aural patina, it unfolds as a comedown after a long fulfilling summer, setting the vibe for introspective autumn days. You’ve all heard these melodic flourishes before, you recognise the drizzle of atmospheric pads and warm pulsating kicks. But you’ve also seen a thousand sunsets, and still find them breathtaking. It’s the kind of arguably generic but simultaneously deeply personal record that wraps you into a comfy blanket of pleasant melancholy.
Rrose x PolygoniaDermatologyEaux
US kosmiche techno trailblazer Rrose, whose catalogue via imprints like Stroboscopic Artefacts and Eaux is one of the strongest in this realm, has remained one of scene’s key protagonists for a decade. Yet more recently, the impression has been that this particular strain of techno doesn’t quite resonate with younger ravers – its tempo too low, arrangements too static and vibe too deep. With the rise of fresh talent, notably the charismatic Australian selector/label owner Kia and Munich-based interdisciplinary artist Polygonia, hunger for hallucinatory dancefloor rituals has reemerged. Interestingly, it was one of Rrose’s performances that first inspired Polygonia to fully embrace this sound, and Polygonia’s productions soon found their way into Rrose’s DJ sets. Their collaborative new mini album somewhat symbolises that master-apprentice trope of the two becoming equals. Proper intergenerational lore exchange! Though they describe it as inspired by natural forms, there’s an artificial, inorganic quality that makes their joint studio output exciting, like sensing unknown materials with your fingertips. The juice is in the constant micromodulations, the envelope filters, the diligently calibrated metallic timbres. Their spiralling droney frequencies, laser-sharp synth beams and intricate polyrhythmic patterns function as psychoacoustic incantations that make a fool of your auditory system. Never take the advice that ‘you should never meet your idols’.
Mala HerbaWounded HealerWhite Forest Inc
Poland’s Mala Herba’s ambitious second album provides a remedy to all-encompassing doom and gloom. Interdisciplinary in nature, featuring collaborators, scenographers and visual artists, the project is rooted in the Greek myth of Chiron, “the wisest and justest of all the centaurs”, and explores the topic of trauma and the search for catharsis through shared experiences. Admittedly, TikTok-promoted “healing music” is one of the worst abominations of our era (I recently saw a reel featuring a white man promoting “healing reggae”). Mala Herba’s practice is closer to extreme (metal) music, though, interested in the healing potentials of releasing anger as a form of spiritual cleansing. Shiver-inducing growls and shrieks leave room for transportative folk-indebted polyphonies, and abrasive industrial-tinged beats dissolve into abstract droney soundscapes and spectral sounds. The ten compositions operate as acts of a neo-pagan, post-industrial tragedy – standalone pieces woven into a grand narrative that can only be conveyed through a theatrical, gesamtkunstwerk lens. The album tugs you into a void during opener ‘Siemieniec’ and only eschews you as the ethereal pads of closer ‘Rusaleczki’ die down. Wounded Healer seeks solace in aggressive sonics balanced with more organic, “earthy” textures and mesmerising voices. More importantly, though, it’s a testimony to the curative power of communal music making.
ObjektGanzfeldKapsela
I vividly remember the final minutes of Objekt and CCL’s performance at Butik Festival 2024. A genuine ‘Holy fuck!’ moment. “Is this Objekt’s 2.0 rendition of his breakthrough masterpiece?” I wrongly wondered. A generational milestone and one of the seminal electronic music tracks of this century, ‘Ganzfeld’shows no signs of obsolescence, sounding as ground-breaking as on the day of its release. To mark the track’s 10th anniversary, Objekt is launching a new label with a reissue EP including long overdue remixes by three heavyweights. But back to my dancefloor epiphany, where the most impressive DJ performance I’ve ever witnessed ended with a track that sounded like nothing I’d heard before. Mind you, through a 4-metre-high Void Acoustics stack, I should’ve known it was Djrum’s wizardry. His flip of this bona fide classic, which shook me to the core, showcases Christopher Nolan-levels of drama and technical dexterity. A 10-minute electronic music epic marked by highly sophisticated IDM/modern classical lore and breathtakingly inventive (re)arrangements, its various segments flow downstream like symphony movements. Piezo opts for a more dizzy direction, alternating between half-tempo riddims, 160 bpm breaks and 4×4 kicks while retaining the cerebral funkiness of the original. Ulla Straus, on the other hand, gets rid of the funk altogether, stretching the central theme into new realms in her soothing study of velvety timbres only vaguely reminiscent of their source material.
Abadir & NahashMarchadair مرشديرSVBKVLT
Leaving behind the conceptual approach of his intimate exploration of Christianity on last year’s Ison, Marchadair sees Egyptian shapeshifter Abadir forming a transatlantic alliance with kindred spirit Nahash. The Montreal-based French producer, owner of a large collection of Egyptian, Lebanese, Algerian and Kuwaiti pop tapes from around the dot-com era, shares with the former his passion for Arabic pop tunes. Don’t expect any nostalgia fodder, though. The EP, which further explores the “chop & tweak technology” Abadir first presented on his breakthrough release Mutate (2022), delivers some of the most instantly gratifying and celebratory Arabic dance music of late. It’s precisely engineered to cause as much mayhem in sweaty clubs as its original counterparts did at weddings and birthdays decades ago. With organic-sounding percussion (notably darbuka, riq and sagat timbres), memorable melodies borrowed from time-tested hits and exhilarating vocal chops that can animate even the most disinterested club-goer, the four productions make for some indispensable DJ weaponry. The drum & bass-indebted roller ‘Alaga’ particularly stands out due to its propulsive character and clever sample-chopping. We cannot overlook the contributions by Italian-Ivorian producer Ehua and Jordanian producer Toumba. The former’s remix sees ‘Tenterlé’ reimagined as a 140 bpm mutant tekno stomper with plenty of characteristic syncopations. While Toumba’s devastating remix of ‘Marchadair’ showcases just how innovative and cutting-edge one can be without diluting a track’s “pop appeal”.
Lechuga ZafiroDesde Los Oídos De Un SapoTraTraTrax
A large majority of contemporary dance music productions sound similar in terms of timbre due to their use of common sample packs, preset sounds and iconic analogue hardware. The fact that the Uruguayan virtuoso Lechuga Zafiro decided to start from scratch, inventing his own intercontinental sound palette from field recordings of animals, natural phenomena and inanimate objects via a painstakingly meticulous process, speaks volumes of his determination to create something idiosyncratic and otherworldly. Put simply, he’s transposed the idea of musique concrète into a club environment. A modernist drive for radical innovation permeates his debut LP Desde Los Oídos De Un Sapo (‘From a toad’s ears’). It’s a monumental piece of ultra-modern club music, which unfolds as a kind of acid-fuelled soundwalk through his enchanting artificial jungle, where sounds behave as untamed goblins and sprites. ‘Oreja Ácida’ instantly pushes you into a sonic vortex, defying your sense of rhythm with polyrhythmic bursts of abrasive Afro-Latin percussion, which becomes even more unrelenting in ‘Botellharpa’. ‘Encause Destellante’ is a gratifying hallucinatory trip through washes of metal wind chimes, while ‘Agua De Vidrio’ draws on the practice of water drumming, typical of the Baka people. Things get even weirder, more out-there and captivating in the latter part of this AOTY contender, which marks a major step forward both in the Latin American electronic music legacy.
Toma KamiMissed HeavenMB Studio
If SOPHIE’s eponymous posthumous album left you, for lack of a better word, underwhelmed, Toma Kami’s debut album might alleviate the disappointment. Though not directly aesthetically related, Missed Heaven brings to mind names such as Two Shell, Lorenzo Senni, A.G. Cook, and of course SOPHIE herself. Mostly this is in how he combines arena-size melodicism and mind-bending sound design. Instead of the raw power of some of his club-oriented output, his album presents a concise and focused vision of pop-infused electronica in a variety of forms and shapes (from jungle and hyperpop to atmospheric intermezzos, dreamy Latin club, trap and downtempo). Opener ‘Fungi’, revolving around a seducingly uplifting synth motif, rude bass pressure and jungle breaks, captures that (p)optimistic joie de vivre. ‘Gladly’ encapsulates his knack for sugar-coated melodies even more gracefully. The best and worst part about the album is its modest runtime. I feel it plays out too fast, and ends too soon. But this is also its winning formula. I’m rarely motivated to immediately rewind a record, but with Missed Heaven I get the feeling that I might have missed something in the first run. Better play it again.
Pearson SoundWhich Way Is UpHessle Audio
Beside Joy Orbison’s ‘Flight FM’, ‘Hornet’ is unquestionably one of the biggest crossover hits of the year. I’ve heard it played in house, tech house and bass sets, on beaches and sweaty small dancefloors, by completely different DJs to largely different crowds. Always with 100% success, making it a rare, epochal phenomenon. The main “buzzing” drone (simulating a dentist’s chair, a barbershop seat, a metal fabrication shop or a construction site, depending on your mood), razory snare, old school scratching, and rolling Miami-via-UK breaks simply force you to react. You realise how amazingly unprecedented the tune is especially when you hear it being mixed with more ‘normal’ sounding tracks. ‘Twister’ emerges from a rather different background. It channels that singular ‘XLB’-energy but squeezes it into the UK hardcore mould, with menacing swirly arpeggios and hyperactive breaks that inevitably mutate into stomping 4×4 hammers. ‘Slingshot’ is a heartfelt homage to dubstep’s golden era. Its Mariana Trench-deep rumble evokes that image of air being moved, even torn apart by the muscular sub frequencies. Meanwhile, the closing title track channels that ‘pensive banger’ energy which inevitably leads to meaningful inner monologues on the floor. An artist with an already impeccable discography, Which Way Is Up cements Pearson Sound’s position as one of UK electronic music’s all time greats.
VerracoBoiler Room StockholmBoiler Room
It’s been some time since a DJ stream caught my attention from the first second, and lured me to enjoy the ride till the end. Not just listening, but actually watching the performance. TraTraTrax jefe Verraco, who’s been on a steady rise and in May released one of the best dance music EPs this year, showcased some jaw-dropping hands-on techno mastery back in September. Taking cues from the masters of the art such as Objekt, CCL, Ben UFO, Batu and Djrum, his peak-time delivery is characterised by intense, dexterous mixing with fast cuts and effective layering. It’s a gut-punching mix with high replay value. He’s skillfully transitioning between moods and genres and swiftly changing his amphetamine freak, house baller, Latin lover and rude soundboy hats, connecting the dots between these various genres and forms in the process. Verraco once again proves eclecticism is key if you want to push the envelope. Fans of the Colombian label will also be glad to discover many upcoming TraTraTrax bangers here, among them a remix of Maoupa Mazzocchetti and Clara!’s tune ‘Mantequilla’, allegedly signed by Pariah, which I hope drops soon.
