Toms Of The Week (17.12.22

Merry Christmas everyone!

In a week bursting with Best Of or other kinds of big label compilations, I thought it would be nice to take a look at some of the (so far) lesser established artists out there, who keep putting out amazing music on their own. In other words, brace yourself for another double Hidden Gem Of The Week edition!

1. Spaces - Eve 💎 [Selfreleased] Recommended if you like: Fox Stevenson, Feint, Yerite Listen: Spotify | SoundCloud

First up: Tom aka Spaces!

You people know how much I love delving deep into an artist's history, what strange aliases they were/are operating under, how they got to this point and what not. That said, I have found basically nothing for our tommy boy from America here. All I know is: He started out producing all kinds of House stuff first (but never released any of it), eventually joined the Fox Stevenson discord in 2021, where he quickly evolved from professional lurker to one of the regular chatters and eventually even DJ-ers at the world-famous Pizza Party streaming events. Through this community he also picked up a couple production skills, which he shares with the world on his YouTube channel. Much like Mr. Foxenson, Spaces loves exploring the cheery, upbeat Dancefloor direction, as evidenced not only by his first two self-released singles, Sunrise in February and Colors in July, but also by his brand new one, Eve!

Released on Christmas Eve's Eve, Eve certainly fits well into the whole holiday spirit aesthetic, with some lovely beautiful pianos and cheerfully cheesy pling plong synths introducing us into the colourful happiness-inducing world of Spaces. We're not here to peacefully chill though, an increasingly loud drumroll and the piano melody smoothly morphing into the synth slowly but surely get the hype juices flowing and before you know it, you're confronted with feel-good yet powerful synths, wonderfully warm basses and hard-smacking drums blasting down your door with the happiest of the happy vibes.

What can I say, I simply love my delightfully cheesy Dancefloor. If you do too, give this one and his other singles a listen, you won't regret it.

Other happy vibes from this week:

T & Sugah, Mara Necia - Bring Me The Christmas Light
Monocule, Leo Stannard, Nicky Romero - Stargazing (Jon Void Remix)
Boxplot - Only Us (Instrumental)
Various Artists - YANA 2020 LP (some of them at least lol)
Diplo, TSHA, Kareen Lomax - Let You Go (Sigma Remix)

2. Swayed - Blaze 💎 [Selfreleased] Recommended if you like: Synergy, Skylark, Oakwite Listen: Spotify

Next up: Tom aka Swayed!

Yep, they're both named Tom. No, I didn't plan this. Other than liking their music, I literally knew nothing about these two before today. Unlike the first Tom, this one is from the UK though and I actually know the surname this time: Cooper! Usually the name is enough to find out a bit more about them, for instance because an interview mentions their name, but my initial optimism after finding his full name quickly waned once I realised what a hugely popular name Tom Cooper is. The only music-related thing that popped up was the Tidal page for Tom Cooper. Sure, it included all of the Swayed content I'm familiar with, but it also showed like 20 other different projects under that name, from something called Ruffhouse to christmas songs under the name CRêPE. Maybe my assumption is completely wrong though and he did create all these tracks under all these vastly different projects. Would at least explain the high quality output he is coming up with on this DnB project!

Speaking of, let's leave this meta research business behind us and talk about the actual project I wanted to share with you. Swayed debuted his first single nearly exactly 2 years ago now, on the first of January 2021. However, even though I called it a DnB project a few sentences ago, he started out in the Progressive House corner of the electronic music spectrum, before swaying over to DnB a couple of weeks later with Set Me Free. What followed was a proper speedrun through all the subgenres, starting out with Dancefloor, going over to deeper vibes, back to the dancy bits, exploring the minimalism a bit, even going over to Liquid for a double single, once more back to Dancefloor, before eventually ending up in a deep-liquid hybrid corner with his brand new single Blaze.

Allow me to expand on the "hybrid" label I non-chalantly stamped on it. One by one, an incredibly unique atmosphere is built up from an atmospheric, almost angelic blanket of background synths, an array of simple yet effective stabs, absolutely stunning synth flourishes and a heavily reverberated snare echoing through the night. Soon enough, the drums are out in full force, further building up the hype together with some beautifully vibey vocals and a set of futuristic vocal chops. After giving said chops the full spotlight for a couple seconds, Swayed brings all the elements of the buildup together with some really warm bass occasionally piping up from below in a truly captivating composition, with each piece coming in one by one, slightly overlapping each other, creating an intoxicating rhythm of greatness. Just 16 bars later, however, things become truly next level, when the previously only infrequently appearing waves of eargasm-inducing synths break out of their prison and make you stop doing whatever you're doing to marvel at its beauty.

I've always really enjoyed Swayed's productions, but this one really feels like another step up on the ladder of greatness. Superbly detailed, stunningly atmospheric, magnificently arranged, just great all around.

Other deep and vibey things from this week:

Sorrow - 21.12.2012 (21.12.2022 Reworks) 💎
Various Artists - Epitome / 1 [Overview Music]
Various Artists - Critical Music: RemiXXed LP
Xeonz - Talk To Me EP
The Outsiders - 2222 EP
RT - Ivory EP 💎
Brook - 10PM 💎
Sobersoul - Signals EP 💎