Each week we’ll be partnering with The QR Network to compile a short weekly recap of notable tracks that we didn’t have time to cover during the previous week. We hope you enjoy our selection and if you have any tracks you’d like to see here, please feel free to use our contact form or post your suggestions in the comments.
Matroda & RICCI — Caliente (Na Na Na)
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Often times, collaborations tend to lean more towards one of the creators but when Matroda does a collaboration, it truly feels like an even split. We saw it in his recent track with QUIX and here again with Brazilian bass producer, RICCI. Both of their styles have a similar tone but a slightly different approach where RICCI goes for more of a dark, atmospheric approach to night bass and Matroda comes at it with a bit more deliberate power. At the forefront of this track is a simple and extremely catchy vocal sample which will surely nestle its way inside your head to have you humming it for a few days at least. The structure of the song is tight which makes every scene feel important. The second drop adds some more bass house elements to up the energy from the first and the second breakdown sees some trap elements added in for dynamism. Even the third eight bars of the drop doesn’t feel like a stretch as they often do because this duo has added enough meaningful elements to justify its place in the song. Overall, this track is full of meaningful and interesting progressions which makes it one of the few modern house songs that you can listen to all the way through.
87/100
LoaX – Original Vibe
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Ever since LoaX came onto the scene, he’s been bringing the groove in spades while keeping it fresh. This track a simple melody but some very interesting effects which lend to its name, “Original Vibe.” There is one particularly large flaw when listening through the track. As many of you all know, a drop is usually sixteen to twenty-four bars. In this track, LoaX cuts the drop short at the thirteenth bar to transition to a buildup to the third scene. A scene which does not maintain the energy of the first twelve bars and seems to serve as another DJ-ready intro leading to the first real breakdown. In the second drop, LoaX follows the same structure and it messes with the entire flow of the track. While this structure is fairly common in groove tracks, usually the third scene will be much more energetic than what came before. This track is very much a DJ’s tool, a good one at that, but we wish that he would have included an uninterrupted sixteen bars of that unique drop.
76/100
Armin van Buuren – Blah Blah Blah (Zany Remix)
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In this remix EP of Armin van Buuren’s modern classic, “Blah Blah Blah,” there are some interesting genre choices and two hardstyle offerings from Zany as well as Brennan Heart & Toneshiterz. With all due respect to the latter two, their remix sounded much more derivative while still missing the heart of the original. Zany on the other hand, maintained the power, catchiness, and raw energy from the original while upping the tempo to hardstyle territory. It follows fairly standard hardstyle structure with a raw first drop which is serviceable and lively. When the second break comes around and the classic hardstyle synths bring in a euphoric melody, instead of copying the original like Brennan Heart and Toneshifterz, Zany introduces a brand-new melody which compliments the original while standing on its own merits. The second drop uses the same melody and induces the same fist-pumping infectiousness which made the original so fantastic. Overall, this version is much more energetic than its psy-trance source material, taking the best parts of it while adding the necessary components to make this remix a true hardstyle banger.
88/100
Zonderling x Don Diablo – No Good
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Hexagon is back after a three-month break with a tune from its founder and ever-rising talent, Zonderling. There are clear callbacks to the two’s previous collaboration, “Tunnel Vision” but this one manages to take a more melodic route to the synths from their past venture. While nothing beyond that particularly stands out from this track, at least Don Diablo is back doing something a bit more original than his recent offerings. There is something we would like to nit-pick about this track and that is its use of triplet. While the percussion is following a standard four on the floor time signature, occasionally the synths would throw in some triplets to add some dynamism but the percussion does not follow the same timing! The result is a 6/8 and 4/4 time signature which sounds like a badly mixed DJ set. We’ve seen this before most notably in Husman’s Heroic where he had a very prominent melody using triplets but keeping his percussion at 4/4. Producers need to catch this before they release tracks with this very basic error!
73/100
ATICA – Talkbox
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Mixmash Deep doesn’t release often, but when they do, it’s usually a fairly unique and fun track. This one has some old school funk vocoded samples paired with an amped up guitar for energy, and groovy percussion to tie it all together. While short, this song has fantastic pacing and a solid progression up until the second drop which loses a lot of the steam build up from the first drop and break. Whereas the first drop starts off with all of its interesting elements, the second starts off with just some simple percussion. Personally, I think the two should have been switched to maximize the potential energy of this track, but the unique sounds and samples still set this track apart and makes this a worthy addition to the Mixmash catalog.
84/100
JETFIRE & Karmatek – Living on the Edge
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JETFIRE has a real knack for creating epic, soundtrack-like breaks like in his collaboration with Mr. Black called “Flame” and his Maxximize release, “India.” However in this new Dharma release, the cinematic quality is still present but sounds extremely muddy overall due to an extreme use of reverb. This is most apparent in the drops which contains interesting melody flourished which just sounds muddled amongst the rest of the elements. The second break starts off by keeping the kicks from the first drop but confuses the listener as to whether they should be jumping or just grooving. It’s a shame because when the kicks drop out, there is some truly impressive percussion and ethnic vocals but will ultimately fizzle out in the copy and pasted second drop. This track has all the elements to have been a banger, but weird mixing, mastering, and arrangement, holds it back from being anything more than it is.
72/100
DJ Junior – Where I Want to Be
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Progressive house is such a saturated genre which makes it hard for producers to decide if they want to make a solid progressive house track or if they want to try to do something unique with the genre. DJ Junior decided to stick with the formula and add a powerful vocal and it just works. There’s nothing particularly special about the synths, vocal effects, or even the melodies; it’s just a really good progressive track. Often times, producers will try to go overboard with milking every ounce of emotion out of a melody, but it seems to us that DJ Junior found a vocal, made a complimentary melody, mixed it, and put it out. Now here we have it on an Armada sublabel run by Firebeatz and it’s just well, solid. If you like progressive house, you’ll like this song. Time will tell if this track will stand out in the long run.
83/100
More Plastic & Levi Walsh – Wipe Out (Feat. Rico Act)
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If you see Rico Act on a dubstep track, you know it’s going to be a banger. A combination of rap, rock, and moombah builds up to a fairly diverse drop starting with straight dubstep for the first eight bars then to riddim in the latter eight. A vocal build then comes in leading to this completely apeshit second drop going hard dance at 160BPM before halving the tempo back to moombah. Surprisingly, there a unique second verse instead of reusing the first break. Sadly, the third drop is identical to the first where it should have been something crazier than the first two. It’s fantastic that they stuck to sixteen bar drops instead of stretching things out as is so common in this genre. Either way, this isn’t anthem material like “Rail Breaker” but this is a strong track that’s certainly going to tear up some dance floors.
83/100
Eddie Thoneick & Kurd Maverick – Reckless
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Pure house music is difficult to review because it is an older genre with a pretty familiar formula. In “Reckless,” it’s a fairly standard classic house with a wonderful soul vocal holding it all together, rolling basslines and a classic drumkit carry the track. Some sections drag on longer than they should but the loops are so hypnotic and the vocals enjoyable enough to tap your foot to this solid offering from SPRS.
82/100
We hope you enjoyed our recap of selected songs from last week. If there is a song that you felt should have been on here, be sure to leave it in the comments below and we’ll do our best to give our take on it. Certain songs were not included because they will be covered in more detail in the following days so make sure you’re following our social media pages to see all of our latest posts!
In case you missed it, here are the tracks we covered last week!
Wax Motif & Hunter Siegel – Wassup
Raiden & Bright Lights – Heart of Steel (Festival Mix)
Breathe Carolina & Sunstars – Feel It
Dimitri Vangelis & Wyman – Phantom
This weekly recap was provided in part by The QR Network which is a blog for interviews with producers and DJs such as Archmage, Rondell Adams, Bubblewrappe, and experiences from EDC.
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