Some chic, uptempo, summertime house music to warm up a stubbornly chilly spring evening here. This is from Bay Area-bred and Soulection-associated Mikos Da Gawd (Miles Douglas), who’s better known for his hiphop production for and with the likes of Anderson .Paak and Mr. Carmack. I usually brace myself when hiphop producers decide they want to pivot to house music (see, e.g., my hero Timbaland’s recent misstep in that direction 😬). But in this case, I actually think Mikos Da Gawd’s house records may outshine his bread-and-butter work, which is already good to begin with. You can find this for streaming wherever you do that sort of thing, or grab it on bandcamp.

Mikos Da Gawd – “Rock the Hot Hot”

High tempos tonight. A step up now–this time from Winter Games, the Finnish duo I covered a couple of months ago. Where that former track was sharp minimalist 2-step, this one they sent over recently is enormous, maximalist, hi-NRG house. The duo explains that like most of their tracks, this was written in a winter cabin lockdown session, but you’d never really guess it. I suppose the measured Scandinavian refinement still manages to slip through a little bit, but this is really just peak-time rave, hands-in-the-air fun. Out now on Winter Games’ own label, Polar Dance. You can find it for streaming or on bandcamp.

Winter Games – “Chills”

Last up this evening is a bit of sub-heavy, minimalist, double-time 140 from LA-based Klo (Kaitlyn Clinard). I don’t usually go for OTT, DC-offset type basslines much anymore, but in this case, Klo manages to frame the grinding wobbles in an elegantly restrained way, bathing them in just enough reverb to take them back in the mix a touch. She gives an otherwise very earthly bass a sort of ghostly quality. Solid work here. No bandcamp for this unfortunately, so I don’t know where to point DJs, but anyone else can find this for streaming.

Klo – “Hold Back”