Category: Featured

SONG OF THE DAY: Felix Cartal ft Koko LaRoo – “Young Love”

To many people, pop is a bad word.? Just because something is enjoyed by the masses doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s low quality or dumbed down, though.? This is the probably the logic behind the efforts of Canadian producer Felix Cartal to rebrand EDM from electronic dance music to everybody dance music.? That’s what he brings on his new single “Young Love,” a summertime anthem with something for everyone – electro beats, glitchy vocal effects, classic house piano, catchy hooks, and a singalong chorus.?? Vocalist Koko LaRoo (aka Kandace Ferrel, who sang on the Richard Dinsdale/Alex Kenji collaboration Songs in the Sky) sounds like the offspring of Dragonette singer Martina and Bright Lights with a perfect of airy and raspy tones to her voice.? “Young Love” is a great pop song that could easily crossover, especially with the recent successes of Icona Pop and Krewella.? The video furthers the summer appeal, capturing a battle between guys and gals with sneak attacks of water balloons and water guns.? Like the song, it’s all in good fun and its great to see both people of both genders as active participants and not just as sexual objects to be ogled.??

Image Courtesy of Dim Mak.

SONG OF THE DAY:? Andreas Rodlund & Matt Hewie ft Jonny Rose – “All We Have”

A DJ friend of mine was messing with me last week.? He was all excited about this “All We Have” track, so he sent me a listening link.? The track, from Swedish producers Andreas Rodlund and Matt Hewie, is a well-produced pop-leaning electro track – starting off relatively soft and building up until a big breakdown to a simple (but pretty) keyboard line before slamming back with hard electro. Sure, there is a cheesy synth in the mix and the ubiquitous dubstep breakdown, yet it was a good track but I couldn’t see why my friend was getting so excited about it. When I called back, he laughed at me and said, oops, forgot to mention the vocal version. What a difference a topline makes!? The song about living in the moment and appreciating the present elevated it from sounding like a typical Beatport track to something much more special.? Jonny Rose’s vocal performance is emotional and adds depth to the song with an expressiveness rarely heard on dance records.?? I have a feeling that “All We Have” would sound as great on the radio as it does in the clubs.

Image Courtesy of Southside Recordings.

SONGS OF THE DAY: Rune RK “Burning Boombox” and Grandtheft & Christian Rich “Deep”

Akin to last week’s double shot of tracks sampling Italohouse diva Ann Marie Smith, here we have two records sampling seminal dubbed-out house classics. Built on the refrain “Deep Down Inside” from Hardrive’s “Deep Down Inside” (later immortalized in “Beautiful People” by Barbara Tucker), the team of Grandtheft & Christian Rich stutter and effect the words into a dirty trap track that will make the hipsters and urban crowds go wild. I guess it makes sense that when an indie electro guy works with a hip-hop electronic duo, the result is a sick trap track. Leave it to Danish producer Rune RK (a/k/a Enur who dominated Ibiza and the world with “Calabria”) to recycle the classic Nightcrawlers’ “Push the Feeling On” hooks from Mark Kinchen’s Dub of Doom into a modern big room stadium house track. The video for “Burning Boombox” tells the story of how he made the track by looping the sample and playing a new keyboard line underneath it. Both these tracks are proof that the ’90s are definitely back and we can look forward to a whole summer of classics with a modern twist dominating dance floors around the world.

Image courtesy of Spinnin.