Gaspard Augé
If EDM had been created in the 1970s, it might have sounded like Escapades, the debut album from Gaspard Augé, better known as one half of French electronic duo Justice. Like EDM, Escapades is utterly in thrall to scale, an… Read More
pop
Suzanne Kraft
On his latest album as Suzanne Kraft, Los Angeles native Diego Herrera, now based in Amsterdam, takes the pulse of a heart in flux. Written during a period when a flourishing romance was abruptly transformed by enforced distance, About You… Read More
Dark0
Video-game soundtracks have often drawn upon club music for inspiration: Just think of the drum’n’bass of Soichi Terada’s music for Ape Escape, the hard techno of the PlayStation Ghost in the Shell game, even the straight-up proto-grime in an X-Men… Read More
Loraine James
For what is ostensibly club music, Loraine James’ productions can feel fiercely guarded. Many dancers and DJs favor smoothly paved superhighways to bliss; James’ zig-zagging tracks are filled with potholes, speed bumps, and the occasional vertiginous bridge to nowhere. The… Read More
Squarepusher
Feed Me Weird Things, originally released in 1996 on Aphex Twin’s Rephlex label, is the Squarepusher LP you could take home to meet your mom—the well-dressed eccentric to “Come on My Selector”’s slobbering psychopath. That’s not to say it is… Read More
Kele
In 1984, London’s Bronski Beat rejected the industry’s ideas about which in-your-face marketing tactics could be applied to a trio of working-class gay men. Instead, they crafted “Smalltown Boy,” a kitchen-sink drama about a bullied outsider who flees home but… Read More
Lucas Santtana
Born in Bahia but long based in Rio de Janeiro, Lucas Santtana should have had both ears plenty full from those two centers of Brazilian culture. With his colloquial, imagistic Portuguese and references to all manner of regional and historical… Read More
Not Waving
In 2017, Alessio Natalizia made an interesting claim about the brusque, intelligent dance music he was making as Not Waving: “We live in such a fucked-up world, so it’s important to make some optimistic music once in a while,” he… Read More
Sparks
Punk set out to shock the ’70s rock establishment, but disco did a far better job. Safety pins and ironic swastikas had nothing on one-piece jumpsuits and boogie shoes. After all, no one ever hosted a baseball-stadium rally to detonate… Read More
Reigning Sound
On their 1995 album Soul Food, which sounds like it was recorded in a deep fryer, Greg Cartwright’s old band the Oblivians released a song with an n-bomb in its title. The Oblivians were Memphis garage-punk kingpins, and Soul Food… Read More