This week in dance music: we talked to the legend Green Velvet (who assured us he doesn’t actually feel legendary) and rounded up the best new dance projects out this week.
Joy (Anonymous), “JOY (Up The Street)”
The Label: Astralwerks
The Spiel: Joy (Anonymous) emerged out of London in the wake of the pandemic with a brightly energetic hybrid of electronic music that’s as emotive as it is effective in getting crowds moving. (And if that sounds like someone else you know, bear in mind that the duo is friends and collaborators with fellow parenthesis enthusiast Fred again..) The sophomore Joy (Anonymous) album, Cult Classics, demonstrates the pair’s efficacy with music that’s tightly produced, extremely warm and as deep as it is playful. Made over the last year, the album’s foundations were forged at Imogen Heap’s house in east London, where the guys — Henry Counsell and Louis Curran — invited a fleet of collaborators over, with the fun and humanity of those sessions evident throughout the no-skips LP.
The Artists Say: “This has been a journey sonically and emotionally over the last two years,” the pair wrote on Instagram. “you are the reason this record got finished, it was your reactions and feedback in the Joy meetings that made realize it was done, so thank you! this is just another journal entry in our tide based journey so keep an eye on it for more things to come.”
deadmau5, “Ghosts ‘N’ Stuff” (Jauz Remix)
The Label: mau5trap
The Spiel: In the 14 years since its release, deadmau5 and Rob Swire’s “Ghosts ‘n’ Stuff” has become an all-time classic, a simultaneously of-the-era and totally timeless song that some producers have cited as the reason they started making electronic music. A remix thus seems like an impossible and/or superfluous task, but Jauz’s new edit (only the third official remix in the track’s history) demonstrates an inventive freshness, with the Bay Area producer keeping the bones of the original — including the entirety of Swire’s call-to-arms vocals — but paring down portions, extending segments and adding a kind of wavy mechanical touch that altogether really works. The track drops ahead of deadmau5’s headlining shows this weekend at Red Rocks Amphitheater, with Jauz, Good Times Ahead and Volaris on support act duties.
The Artist Says: “Making a remix for a song as revered and respected as ‘Ghosts n’ Stuff’ is honestly almost an impossible task,” says Jauz. “It was intimidating and humbling, to say the least. But it was also a great exercise to remind myself how to stop putting pressure and expectation on myself, and just make whatever comes out naturally. I made eight different versions of this remix and this is the only one that really felt like ‘me.’ Thanks to Joel and the team for letting me remix one of the greatest electronic records of all time. It was an honor and such a cool experience”
Tiga, Hudson Mohawke & Jesse Boykins III, “Silence of Love”
The Label: Love Minus Communications
The Spiel: Tiga and Hudson Mohawke continue their LMZ project with “Silence of Love,” on which vocalist Jesse Boykins III uses his almost painfully gorgeous voice to repeatedly request, “Won’t you meet me in the quiet?,” over a track that builds to an immersive lushness that’s anything but.
The Artist Says: “It’s a song,” Tiga writes, “about finding the essence of life in the quiet space that only love can provide.”
PEEKABOO, Eyes Wide Open
The Label: Peekaboo Music/Create Music Group
The Spiel: PEEKABOO’s debut album came hot out of the gate, with its lead single “Badders” (featuring Skrillex, Flowdan and G-Rex) racking up seven million streams in the two months since its release. That track was just a preview of the heaviness the Detroit producer serves throughout his debut album Eyes Wide Open, a 13-track collection of thick, sometimes spooky and thoroughly tough-as-nails productions, with collaborators including Zeds Dead, Grabbitz and LYNY.
The Artist Says: “Thank you all so much for supporting me on this journey so far,” the producer writes. “The last 5 years have been the craziest of my life and I’m so grateful to everyone in this community.”
Nicole Moudaber & The London Community Choir, “Rise Up”
The Label: Nothing Else Matters
The Spiel: We all have those tracks that make us scream “I love this song!” when they come on in the club. For Nicole Moudaber, one of those song’s is Soul Providers’ 2001 single “Rise,” which the techno producer and the London Community Gospel Choir put their own mega-joyful spin on with today’s “Rise Up.” The track is more of a house production than Moudaber’s usual techno output, but the way she pairs the wall of synth with the choir’s exclamations to keep rising conjures a certain dark club toughness that will get dancers reaching for the light.
The Artist Says: “This single has always resonated with me on a deeply personal level, but it is also so relatable on a universal level – considering all that is happening in the world right now,” says Moudaber. “The message ‘Rise, Rise Up, Dust off and do it again’ is such a powerful message: together we can come together and rise up to the next level. We recorded with eight members of the London Community Gospel Choir and let me tell I had goosebumps! I think we made a little piece of magic that day. I am so happy you guys can all finally hear it”
