Jake Back – keep it simple/rytm start
New music from Jake Back, the LA-based artist I covered a few months ago. I hesitate to call these two new ones from Back part of the subgenre ‘outsider house’ — partly because the term was always reductive, but also because these are really more in the world of the subsubgenre ‘lofi house’ with their shared focus on bleached chords, romantic vocal bits, and comparatively clean drums. But I have a hard time using that term either; don’t get me wrong, I do love when sound gets distressed and weathered, but ‘lofi’ feels too ambiguous at this point (and the lofi girl kinda ruined it, right?). Really, these are best described as deep house, but talk about a once-wonderful subgenre becoming associated with so much schlock. So we can’t call it outsider, we can’t call it lofi or deep either–let’s just describe it: both of these are warm, well-composed, and supremely pleasant. Maybe that just makes them effective house tunes in the grand old tradition. Grab these on bandcamp or find them for streaming all over.
Jake Back – “keep it simple”
Jake Back & Sabbia – “rytm start”
Zach from sales – Want u back
Speaking of good house music, we’re blessed by yet another new one from Dutch producer Zach from sales. This might possibly also suffer from the subgenre syndrome I described above, so let’s not rehash that again; instead, let’s learn from our mistakes and just describe the damn thing. Crisp piano stabs, a warning refrain (is it a threat?), a perfectly staggered 4th kick drum to keep you on your toes. This has gotta be my favorite bit from Zach thus far — so much so that I’ll even dispense with the ironic corporate speak this time — and that’s saying something, because I’ve really loved the prior ones I’ve covered over the past few months. Zach was kind enough to let me share the mp3 with you all here again, but you can also support him by grabbing this on bandcamp, or help him rack up the pennies on your streamer of choice.
Zach from sales – “Want u back”
never leave – Colour
Finally tonight, we leave the realm of four to the floor for something a bit more ambiguous stylistically and shuffled rhythmically. Exactly two minutes of tightly packed, amorphous, and emotive bedrooom club music from Danish duo never leave (Leo Peter Larsen & Benjamin Konge Henriksen), this is full of accessible melodic character and enough mildly glitchy ear candy to fill a track twice as long. But none of us have super healthy attention spans these days, do we? Besides, 2:00 is the new 3:30. Kidding aside, this really is a nice one–a deservingly captivating finisher for an evening full of overwhelmingly hyggelig dance music. No bandcamp, unfortunately, but the duo was nice enough to let me post the mp3 for you here (you can also stream it in the usual places).
never leave – “Colour”