23 year-old, New York-based electronic music producer, DJ and JOVM mainstay Dylan Rafael discovered his passion for DJ’ing when he turned 12 — 12 y’all! When he turned 20, he started to learn how to produce his own original material, which led him to playing at clubs like Lavo and nebula, and opening slots for Ship Wrek, Dzeko, Gordo and others.
2023 has been a profile year for the young and rising New York-based producer, and it has included two more recently released singles:
“Cham Cham,” a standalone Balearic-tinged house banger with elements of tribal house and Larry Levan-like house featuring skittering tweeter and woofer rattling beats and subtle Middle Eastern instrumentation paired with euphoria-inducing hooks.
“I Believe” an upbeat banger, built around twinkling and percussive synth arpeggios, skittering beats, euphoria inducing hooks paired with enormous drops and Roland Clark‘s booming delivery inviting the listener to come to the welcoming and loving church of house music.
The JOVM mainstay’s latest single “Ego Dissolution” appears on the recently released Naraka EP. “Ego Dissolution” is a swaggering, slickly produced, thumping banger that wouldn’t sound out of place at Electric Zoo, Ibiza, Berghain or any of the hottest clubs in the world.
Over the past couple of years of this site’s 13-plus year history, I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering Portuguese DJ and production duo Bubba Brothers — Eliseo Correia and Justino Santos — and during that period, the duo, which formed back in 2015, have been remarkably prolific, regularly releasing banger after banger after banger . . .
2023 has been a rather busy year for the JOVM mainstays. Earlier this year, they released the Visions EP, an effort that featured:
“Black Beach,” which saw the JOVM mainstays pairing deep house with Balearic house, built around glistening synth arpeggio-driven melodies, skittering beats, twinkling percussion and euphoria-inducing hooks. The song as the duo explain was inspired by and written on Iceland’s famous Black Beach — but somehow manages to evoke swelling summer nights and sweaty clubs.
“Bobby’s Dream” a club rocking, deep house banger built around skittering tweeter and woofer rattling thump, a sampled Rastafarian meditation, glistening synths and enormous hooks. The end result is a woozy and dream-like song act will get asses out of their seats and onto the floor.
The duo followed the Visions EP with three more singles:
“Meaning” a percussive, banger built around propulsive polyrhythm paired with glistening synth arpeggios, a soulful vocal sample and their unerring knack for euphoric hooks.
“Wasabi” a Larry Levan-indebted bit of deep house built around chunky synth arpeggio blocks, tweeter and woofer rattling, propulsive beats, the duo’s unerring knack for euphoria-inducing hooks — and for the second time in their growing catalog, lyrics sung by the pair.
“Euphoria,” a deep house banger built around percussive polyrhythm, glistening synth oscillations, euphoria-inducing drops and hooks paired with a vocal sample. It’s a crowd-pleasing banger that would rock clubs at Ibiza, Berlin, Paris, New York, Miami and everywhere in between.
The Portuguese duo’s latest single “Foolish” continues an amazing run of melodic, deep house that sounds a bit like a synthesis of Tour de France-era Kraftwerk and Larry Levan-era house built with a trippy motorik groove and blocky synth arpeggios.
Audio Key Architects (A.K.A) is a Paris-based sibling production and DJ duo. Driven by a deep and abiding passion for electronic music and techno, their collaborative project is guided by a share vision of sharing what they love to create and listen to — with the world.
Over the past couple of months I’ve written about the following singles:
“Ellipse,” a single which begins with a Flamenco-like introduction before quickly morphing into a eep house/techno banger that featured a soulful, wailing vocal sample, bursts of vocodered vocals, glistening synth oscillations and skittering beats paired with the duo’s uncannily cinematic sense of melody.
“Fenrir,” a hard-hitting, aggressive techno banger built around tribal percussion, glistening synth arpeggios and a relentless motorik groove. Th result is a song that wouldn’t sound out of place at Electric Zoo — while bringing JOVM mainstays LutchamaK and Bubba Brothers to mind.
“Dune,” the Parisian sibling duo’s latest single is sleek, club friendly banger that alternates between taunt, uneasy tension and radiant, meditative beauty while prominently featuring glistening synth arpeggios paired with a relentless motorik groove. Much like its immediate predecessors “Dune” further cements A.K.A.’s uncanny penchant for cinematic melodicism.
Over the past couple of years of this site’s 13-plus year history, I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering Portuguese DJ and production duo Bubba Brothers — Eliseo Correia and Justino Santos — and during that period, the duo, which formed back in 2015, have been remarkably prolific, regularly releasing banger after banger after banger . . .
2023 has been a rather busy year for the JOVM mainstays. Earlier this year, they released the Visions EP, an effort that featured:
“Black Beach,” which saw the JOVM mainstays pairing deep house with Balearic house, built around glistening synth arpeggio-driven melodies, skittering beats, twinkling percussion and euphoria-inducing hooks. The song as the duo explain was inspired by and written on Iceland’s famous Black Beach — but somehow manages to evoke swelling summer nights and sweaty clubs.
“Bobby’s Dream” a club rocking, deep house banger built around skittering tweeter and woofer rattling thump, a sampled Rastafarian meditation, glistening synths and enormous hooks. The end result is a woozy and dream-like song act will get asses out of their seats and onto the floor.
The duo followed the Visions EP with two more singles:
“Meaning” a percussive, banger built around propulsive polyrhythm paired with glistening synth arpeggios, a soulful vocal sample and their unerring knack for euphoric hooks.
“Wasabi” a Larry Levan-indebted bit of deep house built around chunky synth arpeggio blocks, tweeter and woofer rattling, propulsive beats, the duo’s unerring knack for euphoria-inducing hooks — and for the second time in their growing catalog, lyrics sung by the pair.
The duo’s latest single “Euphoria” continues a remarkable and ongoing run of deep house bangers built around percussive polyrhythm, glistening and oscillating synths, euphoria-inducing drops and hooks paired with a soulful vocal sample. Simply put, it’s a crowd-pleasing banger that would rock clubs at Ibiza, Berlin, Paris, New York, Miami and everywhere in between.
Travis Stewart is a sound designer, composer and electronic music producer, best known as Sentiom. Stewart has spent the past two-plus decades composing music for film scores as a teenager, and gradually moved towards electronic music as one half of the EDM duo Paragon Axis, an outfit whose material has amassed almost one million streams across different streaming platforms. With Sentiom, Stewart crafts lush and melodic techno/deep house that frequently sees him pairing organic melodies with aggressive synthesizer work and driving bass.
Stewart’s latest single, the sleek, dance floor friendly “No Limits” is built around glistening synth arpeggios, skittering 808s, a relentless motorik-like groove and his penchant for rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses paired with a sultry pop starlet vocal sample. The result is a song that seems to channel Robyn and Little Boots with a similar crowd-pleasing accessibility.
Tilburg, The Netherlands-born electronic music producer and DJ Joris Voorn grew up in a rather musical housebound: he’s the son of a composer and a music teacher. With the release of his debut EP, Muted Trax, the Tilburg-born producer received international attention. The following year, he followed up with the universally acclaimed Lost Memories.
2004’s Lost Memories Part 2 featured standout track “Incident,” which became a staple in the sets of many of his now-peers, including Carl Cox, Derrick May and Laurent Garnier among others. Since then, Voorn has released four acclaimed albums, 2004’s Future History, 2007’s From A Deep Place, 2014’s Nobody Knows, which was named electronic album of the year by Billboard and 2019’s \\\, which features an array of collaborations, including British dance music titans Underworld.
Voorn then released a series of mix compilations for Belgium-based Fuse, Australian-based Balance, London-based Fabric and Global Underground. Fittingly, his celebrated abilities and skills in the studio have led to a series of high profile remixes of a diver array of globally renowned superstars including Dua Lipa, Swedish House Mafia, London Grammar, Editors, Underworld, Orbital, Elderbrook, Röyskopp, Groove Armada, White Cliffs and a growing list of others. His most recent remix of Eelke Klein’s “Transmission” has amassed over 30 million streams across DSPs and regular radio rotation across much of Europe.
The acclaimed Dutch producer’s latest single “You & I” is an upbeat bop built around glistening synth arpeggio-driven melodies, and an incredibly catchy, shout-along worthy hook paired with tweeter and woofer rattling thump. Producer, remixer, lyricist and vocalist Nathan Nicholson contributes dreamy and yearning vocals that ethereally dance through the mix. Sonically, “You & I” is a slick and mischievous synthesis of deep house and radio friendly pop that at times sort of winkingly nods at ABBA.
“’You & I’ is the first record in a new series of music that I will be releasing through the course of the next year,” Voorn says. “It marks beginning of a new chapter in my evolution as an artist and this body of work will eventually evolve and grow into a full album at the end of 2024.
“The moment I heard the vocals for ‘You & I’ I was hooked to the beautiful melody, lyrics and performance. Nathan’s voice is a perfect fit for my music, it’s heartfelt and pure,” the acclaimed Dutch producer and DJ says of his collaboration with Nicholson. “Usually vocals are written on a track or chord structure, but in this case it was the other way around. Nathan’s vocals inspired me tremendously and writing the track around it was done in a heartbeat. I’ve played various versions of the track over the course of the summer in almost every set, and the response has been incredible. It felt like we were onto something special. There couldn’t have been a better record to be the first introduction to the music on my 5th album which is currently being finished for release in 2024.”
Nathan Nicholson adds, “This song started life down in South West London with The Melody Men. When writing the lyrics we talked about how opposites do attract, but equally how those differences can make something wonderful and unique also become challenging and painful. It’s a beautiful thing to have worked on this with Joris Voorn, such a legendary and highly respected producer, and I’m so pleased with the outcome.”
FOLLO (born Lucas Dubiez) is a 20-something video director and self-taught, emerging, electronic music producer, who can trace the origins of his music career to meeting fellow French electronic music producer Zerolex (born Jeremey Vieille). As the story goes, Vieille encouraged Dubiez to write and record his debut EP, 2021’s Lumen.
Dubiez’s sophomore EP, last year’s Écume features five instrumental tracks inspired by French 79, Rone, The Blaze, and the films of Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino and Hayao Miyazaki, including “Divine,” a cinematic yet dance floor friendly track that nodded at post apocalyptic sci-fi soundtracks.
The French producer will be releasing his third EP Sense through Odeva Publishing next year. The EP’s first single “Nôma” is a sleek and meditative composition built around a glistening, reverb-soaked, synth arpeggio-driven melody, and a relentless motorik groove paired with skittering beats. The result is a trance-induing song that manages to be simultaneously lounge and club friendly with an escapist quality.
Dubiez explains that “Nôma” “is an ode to nature, travel and escape. Its progressive melody and layers of synthesizers drowned in brilliant echoes offer a glimpse of vast landscapes and infinite expanse. There is then no limit to what the imagination can create on this soft and airy rhythm.”
Directed by the French producer, the breathtakingly beautiful, accompanying video for “Nôma” features some gorgeous natural scenes shot in lingering and longing takes before we see a hoodie wearing person looking at the expansive scenery around them.
Niccolo Messeri is an emerging Italian electronic music producer best known as 2Crimes. As an electronic music producer, Messeri’s goal is to push the boundaries of melodic techno, techno and tech house — with a 90s twist.
His latest single “Do You Feel It?” is a sleek, club banger built around glistening synth arpeggios, tweeter and woofer rattling thump, skittering beats, euphoria inducing hooks paired with robotic vocals. While sonically bringing JOVM mainstay LutchamaK to mind, the song is meant to get you on the dance floor to dance and sweat away your troubles for a bit.
Best known for being the runner-up on the 14th season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, the Camden, UK-born, California-based Lady Camden describes themselves as “American’s very own Spice Girl,” a “British ballerina meets 90s pop princess.”
Stepping back into the spotlight as a pop artist, describes her work as “British grit, American charm, shitloads of talent . . .” served up to you like a motherfucking lady.”
Lady Camden’s latest single “Dirtiest Secrets” is a slickly produced, sultry underground club anthem featuring dark angular house music textures for the song’s verses and euphoric, shout-along-worthy bubble gum pop choruses delivered with a world conquering swagger. The song’s structure is meant to take the listener through feminine and masculine behaviors and energies while inviting you to give in to your deepest and wildest temptations.
Deriving their name as an amalgamation of its members’ last names, Wajatta (pronounced wa-HA-ta) is an electronic music duo that features acclaimed comedian/musician Reggie Watts and electronic music artist, producer and DJ John Tejada.
Watts first burst into the scene as the co-host of IFC’s groundbreaking variety series Comedy Bang! Bang! As a solo performer, he has honed a unique style that blurs the lines between music and comedy that’s heavily reliant on improvisation — most notably, the multi-layered music tracks built on the fly with looped beatboxed rhythms and soulful vocals. The acclaimed comedian and musician has done a TED Talk, multiple comedy specials for both Comedy Central and Netflix, and recorded Reggie Watts Live at Third Man Records at the invitation of Jack White.
Famously, Watts was the bandleader for CBS’s The Late Late Show With James Corden.
Tejada has been at the forefront of the West Coast techno scene since 1994, prolifically releasing a series of acclaimed albums, singles and EPs through labels like Kompakt, Poker Flat, Cocoon, PlugResearch, and his own label, Palette Recordings.
Tejada also is one-half of electronic duo Optometry with March Adstrum. The pair released their debut EP After-Image earlier this year.
With the release of 2018’s Casual High Technology and 2020’s Don’t Let Get You Down, which was released through Flying Lotus‘ Briainfeeder, the duo established a sound that they describe broadly as “electronic dance music with its roots in Detroit techno, Chicago house, ’70s funk and New York hip-hop.”
2021’s Do You Even Care Anymore EP encompassed an evolution of the duo’s sound and approach. “It has developed into something a bit deeper,” Tejada said in press notes. ““While our process and Reggie’s vocal improvisation work is still the same when we record, there’s just something new that we settled into this time. The music and the lyrics got a bit deeper.”
The duo’s newest EP Waiting ForThe Get Down is slated for Thursday release through their longtime label home Brainfeeder. The EP’s latest single “Again And Again” feat. March Adstrum is a sultry and euphoric house-inspired banger built around a pulsating and punchy 4/4 beat, glistening and arpeggiated synths and Watts’ soulful delivery inviting the listener to a much-needed good time, to celebrate existence, get lost in a hypnotic groove and dance.
“‘Again And Again’ came out of me bringing a sketch of it to one of our live shows and just playing it in the set to see how Reggie would respond,” Tejada explains. “This is a fairly normal way of starting tracks, just to be in the moment and to try something that Reggie has never heard before. That moment created a great vibe and was perhaps the highlight of the whole show, so we quickly got it recorded and dialed in the rest.”
32-year-old Oslo-born and-based DJ and electronic music producer WNDR is a grizzled, industry vet, with over two decades of work, and a hard-won reputation for himself in the Norwegian capital’s club scene. Along with that, he has achieved commercial success across both Europe and Scandinavia: His debut single “Medicine,” which has amassed over five million streams went platinum in Norway. “Human,” was playlisted on NRK MP3s playlist. WNDR’s remix of Lemaitre’s “Higher” was playlisted on Kiss FM Norway, received airplay on SirusXM and caught the attention of renowned DJ Martin Garrix. Additionally, the Norwegian producer and DJ has had material land on the Top 10 Charts in both the UK and Ireland — and as a result, he has toured heavily across Europe.
The acclaimed and commercially successful Norwegian producer and DJ has gone on to release hits with a number of industry-leading labels including Crosswalk Records, Sony, and Epic Tones Records.
WNDR’s latest single “Falling Down” was released through Icons Creating Evil Art last week. Built around glistening synth oscillations, skittering staccato beats, a deep bass line and a soulful and yearning female vocal sample, “Falling Down” is a brooding yet sultry banger that’s simultaneously club and lounge friendly.
“’Falling Down’ is one of my darker tracks,” WNDR says. “I’ve been experimenting with sound choices to give my sets a more dynamic feel. With this one I think my followers will be positively surprised, that’s what I’m hoping for at least. . . ”
Audio Key Architects (A.K.A) is a Paris-based sibling production and DJ duo. Driven by a deep and abiding passion for electronic music and techno, their collaborative project is guided by a share vision of sharing what they love to create and listen to — with the world.
Last month, I wrote about the Parisian sibling duo’s second single “Ellipse.” Beginning with a Flamenco-like introduction, “Ellipse” quickly morphed into a deep house/techno banger featuring a soulful, wailing vocal sample, bursts of vocodered vocals, glistening synth oscillations and skittering beats paired with the duo’s uncannily cinematic sense of melody.
Their latest single “Fenrir” sees the French electronic music duo crafting a hard hitting, aggressive techno banger built around tribal percussion, layers of glistening synth arpeggios and a relentless motorik groove. The result is a song that wouldn’t sound out of place at this weekend’s Electric Zoo — while bringing JOVM mainstays LutchamaK and Bubba Brothers to mind.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve managed to spill quite a bit of virtual ink covering Portuguese DJ and production duo Bubba Brothers — Eliseo Correia and Justino Santos — and during that period, the duo, which formed back in 2015, have been remarkably prolific, regularly releasing banger after banger after banger . . .
2023 has been a rather busy year for the JOVM mainstays. Earlier this year, they released the Visions EP, an effort that featured:
“Black Beach,” which saw the JOVM mainstays pairing deep house with Balearic house, built around glistening synth arpeggio-driven melodies, skittering beats, twinkling percussion and euphoria-inducing hooks. The song as the duo explain was inspired by and written on Iceland’s famous Black Beach — but somehow manages to evoke swelling summer nights and sweaty clubs.
“Bobby’s Dream” a club rocking, deep house banger built around skittering tweeter and woofer rattling thump, a sampled Rastafarian meditation, glistening synths and enormous hooks. The end result is a woozy and dream-like song act will get asses out of their seats and onto the floor.
Earlier this year, the duo followed the Visions EP with “Meaning” a percussive, banger built around propulsive polyrhythm paired with glistening synth arpeggios, a soulful vocal sample and their unerring knack for euphoric hooks.
The JOVM’s latest single “Wasabi” is a bit of deep house, seemingly indebted to Larry Levan and others, built around chunky synth arpeggio blocks, tweeter and woofer rattling, propulsive beats, the duo’s remarkably unerring knack for euphoric hooks — and for the second time in their history, lyrics sung by the duo. Remember, dear reader, “house music all night long . . .”
Over the past 12-15 minutes or so, I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering British electronic outfit and JOVM mainstays H2SO4. Last year was among the busiest years for the British outfit as they released a batch of slickly produced club bangers.
They began the year with “Outsiders (BassBears Mix),” a sleek, Balearic house-like banger built around glistening synth arpeggios, tweeter and woofer rattling beats, enormous bass drops and euphoria-inducing hooks paired with sultrily delivered vocal sample fed through a bit of distortion. This one sounds as though it would rock clubs at Ibiza on any given night.
Continuing a rather prolific period for the British outfit, their latest single “Following The Line,” a slick yet accessible deep house banger that wouldn’t sound out of place at Avant Gardner or Ibiza while subtly channeling Tweekend-era The Crystal Method and Come With Us-era The Chemical Brothers.
Alex Paris is a Houston-born singer/songwriter. He located to Los Angeles for college and upon his graduation, he began releasing material independently last year.
The Houston-born singer/songwriter recently relocated to Brooklyn. And since moving to Brooklyn, he has been inspired by the city’s house, tech house and deep house scenes.
Paris’ latest single “Feel” is a fun, summery bop that’s simultaneously lounge and dance floor friendly: The Houston-born, Brooklyn-based artist’s plaintive delivery ethereally floats over a sleek production featuring glistening synth arpeggios and thumping beats.
