Musically, the pair have strained and stretched every musical muscle, and probably many they didn’t know they had. Both Rick Smith and Karl Hyde sound inspired by the former steering the music down unexplored avenues while Hyde constantly shows why he is such an underrated, brilliant lyricist with couplets that may be nonsense but could just as easily be the most profoundly brilliant thing you’ve ever heard.

Most remarkably, every track on the album is there on merit as fully formed pieces with developed hooks and melodies rather than failed experiments or abandoned jams. The result is a stunning artistic statement from musicians, not only deeply immersed in the creative process but also liberated by the mad challenge they initially set themselves just over a year ago.

There is a bitterness to their Southern bless-your-heart feel, swaddling sharp observations in mannered dance-pop. The most haunting track on the album, “Die Young,” hones in on a burgeoning affair: Meath sings with soft curiosity about how she’s finally prepared to yoke her life to another’s. The lyrics themselves are a bit too histrionic to induce sympathy—“I was gonna die young/Now I gotta wait for you, honey”—but there’s no trace of irony; she is fully sincere to the melodrama over new love atop a pleasingly tinny house-lite pulse from Sanborn. (Reportedly, Meath and Sanborn have done the research, falling for each other after recording the debut.) It’s a moment that almost seems to answer the album’s title: the path forward may be calmer yet ever-curious, with plenty of amusement still to be found within.

AZD maintains a musicality that holds the listener close. Sometimes this comes through in more danceable techno moments, like the single “X22RME” or the 80s-leaning synth-driven track “RUNNER,”; elsewhere, it’s in the emotive minimalist breaks of “FALLING RIZLAS” or “THERE'S AN ANGEL IN THE SHOWER.” Cunningham participates in a futurist tradition, following an arc set by artists and writers like Rammellzee and Eshun. But that futurism isn’t predictive, something yet to come; rather, his combination of science fictions, music histories, and socio-spatial realities feels deliriously adjacent to the world we’re listening to it in.

In the past three years,박혜진 Park Hye Jin has moved from Seoul to Melbourne to London to Los Angeles. Before I Die, her first full-length, which she made entirely during the pandemic, excavates the feelings of isolation and vulnerability triggered by those transitions: the injustice of feeling wronged, the ache of familial longing, the loss of her sense of self. 

Where 2018’s breakthrough EP If U Want It and 2020’s How Can I EP focused on dreamy house production with forays into experimental club, juke, and techno, Before I Die expands into trap, industrial techno, and downtempo alongside her typical atmospheric house productions. She also incorporates more storytelling into her lyrics this time, using Korean to illuminate specific incidents and English to convey her feelings in broad strokes. 

Overall an incredible album, which explores the contours of an emotional journey in space and time.

The affinity between much of modern melodic bass music and the indie emo rock of yore has always been apparent. The raw, unabashed emotion, quiet/loud dynamics, and anthemic arrangements are common traits, even if they were rendered with largely different instruments and production styles. This natural progression reaches a full-on convergence on bb u ok?, the second full-length album from Dutch musician/producer San Holo.

Bicep are most easily bracketed under the house umbrella, but many of their tracks don’t adhere to the style’s typical 4/4 pulse. Instead, Bicep favour uptempo jungle breaks, bumping 808 electro and hip-hop beats, and grinding disco rhythms. 

Their eponymous debut album is a varied document drawing on the rich history and variety of UK dance music, updated with sleek, modern sounds, vibrant psychedelic textures, and impeccable production.

Hot Chip are a colorful group compositionally, and their Late Night Tales is no exception. No one mood dominates, no single tempo remains consistent for a long period. After a contemplative beginning with Christina Vantzou’s synthscape “At Dawn”, the record hovers at a slow-to-mid-tempo, then picks up right around Fever Ray’s “To the Moon and Back”.

It quiets down again with Matthew Bourne’s “Somewhere I Have Never Travelled”, picking up with the chill electro lounge jazz in About Group’s “The Long Miles”, and then gently gliding to a tranquil conclusion with reflective piano-led pieces by Daniel Blumberg (“The Bomb”) and Nils Frahm (“Ode”). 

Frontman Alexis Taylor’s father Neil wraps up this 19-track aural exploration with a reading from James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, one of the great novels that few have ever actually read. Clocking in at nearly two hours, this Late Night Tales album is a vision of a night full of twists and turns, technicolor in moments, and gloomily monochrome in others.

On paper, Reggie Watts and John Tejada make a strange pair. Watts is now a household name to millions of Americans, after his virtuosic beatboxing and stand-up comedy landed him a regular gig as bandleader on The Late Late Show with James Corden. 

By contrast, John Tejada is a beloved techno legend whose reticent nature would make it difficult for even the most ardent raver to pick him out in a lineup. What they have in common is casual mastery of their respective crafts: performance and production. With their joint project Wajatta, the two Los Angelenos stretch out and show off that formidable musicianship.