This week in dance music: Australian dance festival Rabbit Eats Lettuce announced that it will be the first event in Australian history to offer on-site pill testing, Coachella will debut a new stage for extended dance sets called Quasar at the festival next month and Illenium — who’s on the current cover of Billboard — was announced amongst a massive lineup for Summerfest 2024.
And these are the best new dance tracks of the week.
Logic1000, Mother
There’s dance music to dance to, and there’s dance music to live with. The debut album from Logic1000, Mother, delivers both. Out via Because Music, the 12-track LP opens with “From Within,” a lush, cerebral slice of lDM built from clean breakbeat and a gently pulsing synth that’s altogether deep, nuanced and appropriate for a cozy Friday night on the couch. Elsewhere, the Australia-born, Berlin-based producer born Samantha Poulter gets the blood pumping with club-ready tracks like the slinky, sophisticated “Side by Side.” Altogether, the project is an homage to Poulter becoming a mother (she and her husband, fellow producer Tom McAlister, welcomed a daughter in 2022) and all the depth, nuance, excitement and reflection that comes with it.
“If hearing the story about my transformation during motherhood inspires someone to look deep within themselves and think about how they want to grow and transform,” Poulter recently told Billboard, “that will make this album successful to me.”
Cakes Da Killa, Black Sheep
Over three albums going back eight years, New York City’s Cakes Da Killa has cultivated a flow best described as unmistakable. That signature vocal dexterity and lyrical verve are all over his latest LP, Black Sheep, produced in partnership with Cakes’ longtime collaborator Sam Katz and out via Tokimonsta’s Young Art Record. The album contains already released dancefloor fire including “Mindreader” and the Rochelle Jordan collab “Do Dat Baby.” Meanwhile the brand new “Make Me Ovah” finds the hip-house artist at his coolest and most confident, singing about taking flights to Brazil and “going straight through the gate ’cause I’m worth the mils.” To wit, Cakes is currently on tour in Australia, Korea and China.
Justice feat. Miguel, “Saturnine”
After dipping into both lightly psychedelic and body-pummeling territory on the previously released singles from their forthcoming Hyperdrama, Justice shifts into hazy, slow burn mode on “Saturnine,” a collaboration with the perpetually silken-voiced Miguel. Made from waves of synthesized guitar, crashes of percussion and a cheeky bell, the track finds the duo at their most playful.
“We don’t think we’ve ever made anything that sounds remotely like this track before,” the pair, Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay, say in a statement. “It started with Gaspard playing around with an E-mu synthesizer guitar sound, and he found the main riff. The rest came very quickly. We love Miguel’s voice when it’s raw. We wanted him to sound outrageously frontal, with no space around his voice. We felt confident we could make this work with a single mono take of his voice, and minimal processing. It also suited the theme of the song, that’s this sort of fear and loathing in Las Vegas sweaty, hallucinatory flow. Feeling well in feeling bad.”
Speaking with Billboard at SXSW in Austin last week, the duo confirmed that they’ll tour North America behind the album, with dates to be announced. They also just added a second show at Paris’ Accor Arena in December after the first sold out in a flash.
Seven Lions & ILLENIUM feat. ÁSDÍS, “Not Even Love”
Illenium and Seven Lions reunite for their first collaboration in eight years, “Not Even Love.” Getting its live debut during Seven Lion’s surprise appearance at Illenium’s Trilogy show at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium last month, the track is a slick hybrid of Seven Lions’ trance-iest impulses and Illenium’s chest-pumping future bass, with vocals from Iceland-born, Berlin-based vocalist ÁSDÍS turning the emotion dial up to anthemic. The track is Illenium’s first single of 2024, with collaborations with REZZ, Tiësto, Mike Shinoda and more also forthcoming. Meanwhile, Seven Lions plays Ultra Music Festival in Miami this weekend.
Ahadadream, Priya Ragu & Skrillex, “TAKA”
British-Pakistani producer Ahadadream and Tamil-Swiss artist Priya Ragu link with Skrillex for the undeniable “TAKA.” Recorded in London a few years back and previewed during Ahadadream’s debut Boiler Room set last September — a show during which Skrillex materialized as if from nowhere when the song played — the track melds warm waves of synth, lyrics paying homage to South Asian culture from Ragu like “Chin Mudras up/ Take off, levitate/ It’s a vibe, it’s a vibe/ Let the dhol demonstrate,” loads of hand percussion and a generally extremely ebullient vibe.
Ragu is currently on tour in the U.S., while Ahadadream is playing The Do Lab stage at Coachella next month and Skrillex is making his only North American U.S. festival appearance of the summer at Lightning In a Bottle in May. Meanwhile, “TAKA” is out via Major Recordings and FFRR.
SIDEPIECE & San Pacho, “Taka”
Wait, what? Yes indeed, there are two dance tracks named “Taka” out today. Why? We’re not sure. While Skrillex’s and crew’s song possesses South Asian influence, SIDEPIECE and Croatian producer San Pacho offer a Latin-leaning, tech house oriented track, with the song outfitted with a horn, hand percussion and a male voice repeating the song’s title at a rapidfire pace.
Moby feat. Lady Blackbird “dark days”
Earlier this week Moby announced his 22nd (!) studio album, Always Centered At Night, with the news coming in tandem with his latest single, “dark days.” A collaboration with jazz and soul singer Lady Blackbird, the track lays her rich, deeply human voice over production that merges scintillating percussion and bass groove, with the whole thing pulling off that very Moby balance of beauty and doom. Always Centered At Night features collaborations with 13 different artists and is coming June 13 via Moby’s label of the same name. The artist will also play five European shows this September to celebrate the 25-year anniversary of his era-defining album, Play.
