Kenon Chen is a prolific, electronic pop singer/songwriter and producer, who over the course of last year released four albums — Electric Winter, The Tide: Wave I, Electric Spring, Electric Summer and Electric Fall.
Chen also released the Electric Seasons Remixed album earlier this year. The album features “Safe In Your Arms (Lunar New Year Edit),” a slickly produced hook-driven bop featuring skittering beats, strummed guitar and glistening synth arpeggios serving as a lush and cinematic bed for Chen’s plaintive falsetto. Rooted in deeply heartfelt and earnest lyrics, the song seems to channel Get Ready-era New Order and St. Lucia.
Continuing a wildly prolific run, Chen released the Sunday EP earlier this month. The EP features, EP title track “Sunday (Radio Edit),” is a sleek banger featuring glistening synth arpeggios, skittering tweeter and woofer rattling thump, a relentless motorik groove paired with rousingly anthemic hooks and bursts of twinkling reverb-drenched keys. The production serves as a lush bed for Chen’s achingly tender falsetto singing some deeply earnest lyrics.
“‘Sunday’ is an anthem to summer Sunday drives and spontaneous adventures, from its infectious melodies to its heartfelt lyrics,” Chen explains.
Jacqueline King is a Chicago-born, Berlin-educated, London-trained, Los Angeles-based electronic music producer and DJ, best known in electronic music circles as Mister Lady. With Mister Lady, King draws from a huge catalog of musical influences, […]
Damien Curry is a Los Angeles-based musician, composer and producer, who has crafted over 1,000 tracks that can be hard on over a dozen household name TV shows in just about every style you can name — from orchestrated scores, techno, emotive drama and rock.
Recently Curry has dove into an entirely new creative space with electronic dance music. His latest single, “Can’t Get Enough” is a slickly produced, club banger featuring dense layers of glistening synths arpeggios, skittering beats, bursts of soaring strings and big, rousingly euphoric hooks and choruses serving as a lush bed for Honey Larochelle‘s soulful, pop belter delivery.
French electronic music producer and JOVM mainstay LutchamaK has had a busy 2024:
The JOVM mainstay began the year with a two-track release through Techno Parade titled Job Done, which featured “Job Done,” a glitchy and swaggering bit of techno meets footwork featuring machine gun-like skittering beats, glistening synth arpeggios paired with tweeter and woofer rattling thump. It’s an accessible and euphoric club banger meant to be played loudly and meant to encourage you to dance and sweat.
He followed that up with Flip the Funk, a four-track EP, which was digitally released through British electronic label Biotech Recordings and featured EP track “Pride,” a lush and soulful bit of deep house-meets-techno that reminded me of house music nights on WBLS back in the day.
There was “Acid Drift” a slick, seamless synthesis of tribal house, deep house and drum ‘n’ bass that slaps hard while being dance floor friendly, which was released through Rue des Trois Rois Records.
Continuing a remarkably prolific period, the French producer and JOVM mainstay recently released the eight-track mini album Great Broken Masses of Land through his own TERMusik. “The whole thing is more dance floor than sofa listening,” LutchamaK explains.
Throughout the week i’ve written about about two of the album’s singles:
Album opener and title track “Great Broken Masses of Land,” a trance-inducing, lat night, club banger anchored around skittering tweeter and woofer rattling thump and dense layers of oscillating yet melodic synths, a chopped up mantra-like vocal sample paired with his unerring knack for incredibly catchy hooks.
“City Energy,” a crowd pleasing, club banger featuring glitchy oscillations, bursts of glistening synths and some industrial, tweeter and woofer rattling thump. While continuing to see the JOVM mainstay play with and mesh several different styles and subgenres, “City Energy” not only accurately evokes its title, but shows an artist, who actively pushes his sound and approach in new directions while still remaining wildly accessible.
Clocking in at a smidge over six minutes, “B Queen V2,” Great Broken Masses of Land‘s latest single continues a run of late night club bangers. And much like its predecessor, features glitchy oscillations, bursts of glistening and melodic synths, skittering beats and remarkably catchy hooks paired with a dreamy vocal sample that bursts out from the mix. “B Queen V2” manages to be a subtle refinement of his firmly established sound that retains the melodic yet crowd-pleasing quality he’s best known for.
GR1FN is an emerging and mysterious American-born electronic music producer, who has had a rather busy 2024. So far, he has released five singles, which includes his latest single “Underneath the Sun,” a Larry Levan-meets-French touch-like banger featuring dense layers of twinkling keys, skittering tweeter and woofer rattling beats and oscillating synths pared with euphoria-inducing hooks and a chopped up, soulful, mantra-like vocal sample.
It’s a summery anthem, you’d fully expect to hear rocking clubs from New York to Miami and from Ibiza to London and everywhere else in between.
Wildly prolific French electronic music producer and JOVM mainstay LutchamaK has had a busy 2024:
The JOVM mainstay began the year with a two-track release through Techno Parade titled Job Done, which featured “Job Done,” a glitchy and swaggering bit of techno meets footwork featuring machine gun-like skittering beats, glistening synth arpeggios paired with tweeter and woofer rattling thump. It’s an accessible and euphoric club banger meant to be played loudly and meant to encourage you to dance and sweat.
He followed that up with Flip the Funk, a four-track EP, which was digitally released through British electronic label Biotech Recordings and featured EP track “Pride,” a lush and soulful bit of deep house-meets-techno that reminded me of house music nights on WBLS back in the day.
There was “Acid Drift” a slick, seamless synthesis of tribal house, deep house and drum ‘n’ bass that slaps hard while being dance floor friendly, which was released through Rue des Trois Rois Records.
Continuing a remarkably prolific period, the French producer and JOVM mainstay recently released the eight-track mini album Great Broken Masses of Land through his own TERMusik. “The whole thing is more dance floor than sofa listening,” LutchamaK explains.
Earlier this eek. I wrote about album opener and title track “Great Broken Masses of Land,” a trance-inducing, lat night, club banger anchored around skittering tweeter and woofer rattling thump and dense layers of oscillating yet melodic synths, a chopped up mantra-like vocal sample paired with his unerring knack for incredibly catchy hooks.
Great Broken Masses of Land‘s latest single “City Energy” is a crowd pleasing, club banger featuring glitchy oscillations, bursts of glistening synths and some industrial, tweeter and woofer rattling thump. While continuing to see the JOVM mainstay play with and mesh several different styles and subgenres, “City Energy” not only accurately evokes its title, but shows an artist, who actively pushes his sound and approach in new directions while still remaining wildly accessible.
Wildly prolific French electronic music producer and JOVM mainstay LutchamaK has had a busy 2024:
The JOVM mainstay began the year with a two-track release through Techno Parade titled Job Done, which featured “Job Done,” a glitchy and swaggering bit of techno meets footwork featuring machine gun-like skittering beats, glistening synth arpeggios paired with tweeter and woofer rattling thump. It’s an accessible and euphoric club banger meant to be played loudly and meant to encourage you to dance and sweat.
He followed that up with Flip the Funk, a four-track EP, which was digitally released through British electronic label Biotech Recordings and featured EP track “Pride,” a lush and soulful bit of deep house-meets-techno that reminded me of house music nights on WBLS back in the day.
There was “Acid Drift” a slick, seamless synthesis of tribal house, deep house and drum ‘n’ bass that slaps hard while being dance floor friendly, which was released through Rue des Trois Rois Records.
Continuing a remarkably prolific period, the French producer and JOVM mainstay recently released the eight-track mini album Great Broken Masses of Land through his own TERMusik. “The whole thing is more dance floor than sofa listening,” LutchamaK explains.
The album’s opening track, album title track “Great Broken Masses of Land” is trance-inducing, late night, club banger anchored around skittering tweeter and woofer rattling thump and dense layers of oscillating yet melodic synths, a chopped up mantra-like vocal sample paired with his unerring knack for incredibly catchy hooks.
gome is a Hamburg-based DJ and producer duo that has developed a crowd-pleasing sound that blends 90s house with touches of funk, disco and soul. As live performers, they favor a strict hardware setup: The German pair are actual musicians, along with being producers — and they’re unafraid to incorporate live instruments like keyboards, guitars, bass or their own vocals during live performances at clubs.
They’re also the founders of newly-minted Hamburg-based label snackwax, a label that specializes in a delectable sounds and a flavorsome approach to house music. The label’s third release, the recently release Vital Organ EP is by emerging, New York-based electronic music artist and producer James Juke. The EP reveals a versatile and creative artist, who can craft club bangers with a remarkable self-assuredness and an unerring knack for catchy hooks.
The EP’s opening track, EP title track “Vital Organ” features a slick, 90s house-inspired production featuring thumping and skittering beats, a sinuous, dance floor friendly groove and glistening organ-like synth arpeggios paired with a soulful, Baptist preacher-like vocal sample and euphoria-inducing hooks. If this track doesn’t make you get up out of your seat and dance, then you’re probably either dead or soulless.
Seattle, WA-based multi-instrumentalist, electronic music artist and producer Grant Eadie is the creative mastermind behind the acclaimed JOVM mainstay outfit Manatee Commune. Over the the better part of the past handful of years, Eadie has specialized in a carefully molded sound that pairs natural overtones extracted from field recordings and other sources, live instrumentation and arrangements and slick yet nuanced production.
Eadie’s fourth Manatee Commune album Simultaneity is slated for a July 19, 2024 release Bastard Jazz. The album, which marks a return to his longtime label home, is anchored around the lush and vibrant production that’s his trademark while being a bold and mature step forward in his sound and songwriting approach. Eadie has stepped away from standard songwriting and lyrics altogether, with the album’s material leaning closer to ambient electronica while keeping one foot solid in the realm of house music.
Simultaneity‘s latest single “Faulted” is a lush and woozy track anchored around gentle layers of glistening and reverb-soaked synth arpeggios, skittering percussion and tweeter and woofer rattling thump that twist and turns into dreamily prismatic patterns. Sonically recalling Octo Octa‘s Between Two Selves, “Faulted” is a track that’s meditative enough to be lounge friendly but with enough muscular oomph to be club friendly.
Vivian Morrison is a Paris-based electronic music producer, artist, remixer and creative mastermind behind emerging project Comma Period. Morrison initially started the project to remix a couple of songs for French multi-instrumentalist Colleen.
Comma Period quickly developed into a project rooted in retro-futuristic escapism, cyberpunk loneliness and synthwave nostalgia for a future that will never be and we’ll never see. The project’s debut EP Ruin Porn was released earlier this year. Thematically, the EP’s material is informed by the modern fascination with ruins — both ancient and modern. But it’s also about the horror of the ruins of Gaza, Ukraine and elsewhere, and our powerlessness to stop the ongoing madness of our world.
The EP’s latest single “Presets for Life (Radio Edit)” is a hypnotic, industrial banger featuring layers upon layers of glistening and woozy synth oscillations paired with skittering beats. While sonically recalling Snap!’s “Rhythm Is A Dancer” and JOVM mainstay LutchamaK, the song as the emerging Parisian explains, ask a couple of questions: Wouldn’t it be nice if we had presets in real life, like in music software? And those presets would tell us how to behave, how to love, how to live and how to die?
Edited by Morrison, the accompanying video for “Presets for Life” features open source videos available on Pexels, and follows a young boy exploring a suburban ruin. Throughout, the video’s imagery gently undulates to the music, adding a lysergic feel to the visual.
I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink over the past handful of years covering the Portuguese DJ and production outfit and JOVM mainstays Bubba Brothers — Eliseu Correia and Justino Santos — and the during that period, the duo have been remarkably prolific, regular releasing banger after banger after banger after banger.
Continuing upon a period of remarkably prolificacy, the duo began the year with the Diva EP, an effort dedicated to their beloved dog Nikki, “who was more than a companion; she was the soul and diva of the household,” as the duo explain. The EP featured
Title track “Diva,” a sleek, slickly produced deep house banger that channels Larry Levan, Octo Octa and fellow JOVM mainstay LutchamaK featuring layers of rolling and propulsive percussion, a sultry vocal sample paired with tweeter and woofer rattling thump that continues a remarkable run of euphoric bangers.
“Music Is My Drug,” a euphoric, deep house banger that effortlessly meshes Larry Levan-like house with tribal house in a way that sounds as though it would be heard at a club in Ibiza, as well as Berghain.
The duo return with “Hangover (Feel Like A Zombie)” another slickly produced banger anchored around twinkling percussion, tweeter and woofer rattling thump, skittering beats, woozily glistening synth arpeggios and a vocal sample that tells of being hungover from partying — and that they’d do it all over again. It’s Friday y’all. Everything is on fire. Party. Meet some new people. Get fucked up. Repeat.
Lucas Dubiez is a 20-something French-born video director and self-taught, rising electronic musician and producer, best known as FOLLO. Dubiez can trace the origins of his music career to meeting French electronic music producer Jeremey Vieielle, a.k.a. Zerolex, who encouraged Dubiez to write and record what would become his debut EP, 2021’s Lumen.
Dubiez’s sophomore EP, 2022’s the five-song Écume featured material influenced by French 79, Rone, The Blaze, and the films of Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino and Hayao Miyazaki,incuding “Divine,” a cinematic yet dance floor friendly track that nodded at post apocalyptic sci-fi soundtracks.
The French producer’s third EP, Sense, which featured the sleek and meditative “Nôma” was released through Odeva Publishing. Building upon a growing profile, Dubiez will be released a three track effort that included “Crescendo,” a melodic techno track built with around glistening synth arpeggios, skittering beats and a hypnotic motorik groove that recalls Tour de France-era Kraftwerk and 45:33-era LCD Soundsystem.
The final track of the trilogy, “Oxygen” continues a run of melodic house but anchored around euphoric, glistening and cascading synth arpeggios and a relentless motorik groove. While channeling M83, Kraftwerk and the like, “Oxygen,” according to Dubiez “invites us to discover majestic spaces, unexplored landscapes and distant lands. On great flights of arpeggios and numerous cinematographic chords, the traveler escapes. questions his relationship with others, as if to find himself better. What if the most beautiful journey was an inner journey?”
Featuring members who hail from Czechia and Germany, Trendos and Viralli is a EDM production and DJ team, who manage to be restlessly prolific, releasing several songs a month. Their latest single “Blood Rave” is a woozily hypnotic, euphoria-inducing banger featuring tweeter and woofer rattling thump, glistening synth stabs and enormous hooks and drops.
Sonically channeling The Prodigy and deep, underground house, “Blood Rave” is the late night, seemingly drug-induced anthem for dancing the night away — and hopefully forgetting your troubles for a bit.
Since exploding into the scene back in 2017, the acclaimed Kinshasa-based collective KOKOKO! have captivated audiences globally with a striking, forward-thinking, dance floor friendly sound. The Congolese outfit’s full-length debut, Fongola was released to widespread critical acclaim with DJ Mag writing that it was “quite unlike anything else you’ll hear,” and The Guardian calling the collective a “commanding new voice.”
Thematically and aesthetically, the acclaimed Congolese outfit has had a long-held, fiercely activist and political slant. The Democratic Republic of Congo continues to experience serious human rights violations, including mass killings within the context of armed conflict and inter-communal violence, as well as crackdown on dissent and ill-treatment of detainees. People residing in regions affected by a variety of armed conflict are deeply impacted amid mass displacement and other deepening humanitarian crises. Additionally, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s wealth of natural resources are routinely exploited by large, multi-national tech companies and other conglomerates, which helps to fuel even more conflict in the region.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, political protest using words carries a risk of imprisonment, so dissidents and performers often work with their bodies and sounds to express and signal their critiques and commentary. The acclaimed Congolese outfit’s highly anticipated sophomore album BUTU is slated for a July 5, 2024 release through Transgressive Records. The album reportedly sees the collective continuing to pair a resistant, punk-like energy and attitude, informed by the attitude and thoughts of a new generation of Congolese artists and young people with their attention grabbing block party alchemy, but pushed to new, global heights.
Kinshasa’s after-dark buzz was one of the major inspirations behind BUTU, which means “the night” in Lingala, and the album dives deep into the heart of the chaotic, throbbing city, celebrating and championing the joyful and creative spirit of its inhabits. Continuing their ongoing collaboration with Belgian producer Xavier Thomas, a.k.a. Débruit, the forthcoming album reportedly sees the collective led by Makara Bianko channeling a more electronic-driven, upbeat sound while replicating the frenetic feel of their hometown’s dynamic nightlife: equipment is pushed to its limits through saturated and distorted speakers and the sonic push-and-pull of nighttime sounds.
The band employs field recordings, recorded from the city’s nighttime sounds and “ready-made percussion” like detergent bottles,. the collective fed those sounds through distortion to get closer to those nighttime sounds. “Compared to Fongola, this album is intentionally way more intense, because it’s quite upbeat and quite full-on,”Xavier Thomas says. The album’s material also pulls from much wider influences and span across West Africa and South Africa, influenced by Bianko’s global travel, which introduced him to new types of alternative electronic music and punk.
Last month, I wrote about “Mokili” a house music inspired banger featuring glistening synth arpeggios, relentlessly skittering hi-hats and tweeter and woofer rattling thump serving as a slickly produced bed for Bianko’s crooning and impassioned shouts. Continuing a remarkable run of club friendly material with an in-your-face punk attitude and ethos, “Mokili” captures the frenetic and sweaty energy of their hometown and its nightlife scene with an uncanny, novelistic realism. But along with that, the song is a forceful and joyous reminder that Africa is the present and the future. (If y’all didn’t know, by 2050 close to a quarter of the entire world will be African.)
“’Mokili’ is about moving the world so much that it’s going to tip over sort of,” the acclaimed Congolese collective explains. “This track was a track we were used to trying live in a more improvised way, we never got the chance to record till recently where we added the right touch for the studio. It was the last addition to our album BUTU and became the first single, so it’s really fresh. It has obviously influences from Kinshasa but also Kwaito and 90’s dance music.”
BUTU‘s second and latest single “Salaka Bien” is a euphoric, trance-inducing banger anchored around percussion created on heavy ceramic pots and pans, glistening house music synth stabs and skittering beats that helps to emphasize Bianko’s punchy and swaggering delivery singing lyrics full of winking sexual innuendo. If this track doesn’t fire you up and get you moving, you’re probably dead — literally and figuratively.
“It’s a bass line driven track, with a lot of influences, like punk funk meeting old house stabs with a trance feeling!” The acclaimed Congolese collective explain. “When we play it live there are moments of overwhelming feeling building till it explodes and people let go totally. Do it, do it good, do it till you break it”.
