Picks Of The Week (02.11.24

1. Various Artists - Perspectives, Vol. 1 [Ridmic]

Recommended if you like: Lexurus, Metrik, T & Sugah

Over the almost 5 years of doing this now, I've always tried my best to shine a light on some of best, more underrated names all across spectrum alongside the deep dives into the bigger, usual suspects. Since Liquicity sister label Ridmic's brand new first-ever compilation EP, Perspectives, Vol. 1, is almost exclusively comprised of all my lesser-known Dancefloor favourites of the past few years, I thought why not revisit them once more?

Laminar - Horizon

We - the EP and I - start off with Reading-based Kian Kasler, also known as Laminar! Since we last unravelled the Laminarrative roughly 2 years ago, the now 24-year-old has been hitting one ball after another out of the park, with various heinously heavy pavement-flatteners with hayve on Ophelia, Liquicity and Monstercat, a huge remix for Jon Robinson, some collaborativeness with Gavin Beach and JYRYMY on DROP., and soaring production work for Airports' NEED U HERE that made its way into my Best Of list of last year. The people, i.e. me, demand more Laminairports! Anyway. Now, this in my eyes still one of the most underrated artists around continues his hot streak with his most relaxing tune of the year so far, Horizon. Built around a lead that is as dreamy as it is melancholic, Kian takes us on a rainbow roadtrip of futuristically vibrating basses, smoothly rolling drums, and colourful synth backdrops that make me just want to close my eyes and drift away. More like Hori-zen, am I right?

Curious Mind - Calling For Me

Next, we've got a recent addition to our wide-reaching portfolio, Dutchland's most prolific newcomer Curious Mind! Just in the time since we last satisfied our curiosity about the Bosman's backstory, so in less than a year, and often together with his good mate Comet, he's put out bangers on the likes of Ridmic and Don Diablo's FUTURE, but also SKINK, LFTD, Red Ocean and Bass Planet, successfully expanding my label knowledge quite a bit. Oh, and there was of course his recent Sub Focus supported Embers on none other than DnB Allstars! Not to mention his Eindhoven-based Nebula event series continuing to thrive and that guest mix he did for Mollie Collins' radio show! As is his trademark at this point, Guido now returns with moody bouncer Calling For Me, massaging our collective ears with satisfyingly minimalistic yet effortlessly catchy bass blobs while the wonderful vocal sample fills up the higher ends nicely. More like Curious Mint!

KNGHT - All Your Love

We jump up a few octaves with Belgian Liquid-Dancefloor afiniado Sascha Deggenhardt, better known as KNGHT. Since I last Sashared my love for his music on here, he not only released wonderful loveliness on Fokuz and Ridmic, but also smashed out the heartbreaking Give It All on High Tea. An energy difference like KNGHT and day. My stupidness aside though, Sascha has also joined High Tea's Tea Leaves booking agency, played Rampage Open Air, Liquicity Antwerp and High Rollerz, got interviewed by Dave Columbo Jenkins' 1 More Thing, and got his tunes played out at Liquicity Festival by Natty Lou - quite the year and a half he had! While his addition to the compilation, All Your Love, might start smooth enough, Sascha's introduction of the lovely vocal and soft synths quickly steers it all into a more dancy territory, where we are treated to a high energy, uplifting lead going back and forth with the vocal taking on all sorts of shapes throughout, and vocal chop action that is just delightful. Or should I say, deKNGHTful?

Cream Blade, romi - Celestial (Last Time)

After looking at the whole knight, we go further back in time, zooming in on just the sword, more specifically his Cream Blade! No, not like that, you animal. I'm of course referring to Spanish producer Miguel López Vidal's wonderful project that we unsheathed on here, like, three years ago now! While not super active on socials, Miguel has continued to live his best unique dancefloor life full of hyper-trance-y, 90s-y vibes and unique vocals, on labels like High Tea, Ridmic, Liquicity, Cracking and dreamstation, with his most favourite vocalist romi completing the picture on at least half of them. Just like on this newest one, Celestial (Last Time)! With soft strings and pretty pianos providing a background bed of niceness, romi is able to bring out some of her most velvety smooth vocals yet, before Miguel turns on the hype-inducing combo of synths and breaks that lead us into the dreamy dancefloor journey that is the drop. I sincerely hope this is not their (Last Time) working together.

NELSØN - Press Play

We continue our nostalgic journey down review memory lane with Utrecht-based Niels Otter, known to us as just NELSØN. I mean, our last collective look at the newcomer goes all the way back to April 2021! While not a whole lot has happened since then, Niels did land a certified hit banger with his Ridmic family introduction See The Light with the one and only Karina Ramage, which also landed him a spot on Liquicity's summer compilation that same year. Now, he returns to the place of said smash hit, with Press Play! Upon doing what the title tells us to do, NELSØN starts painting us a mandala of larger-than-life euphoric synths, fun vocals and, once we get to the drop, hard-hitting drums and quick-fire synth chords. Otterly banging!

Rex Hooligan - Blessing

We keep smashing out the bangers with my favourite Switzerland-based Estonian, Siim Asperk, the man behind Rex Hooligan! If you remember, this most prehistoric vandal is a regular on this format, with his first appearance dating back to the milleniuarchean period of 2021, and man, has he been busy since then! After a brief period of relative quiet in 2022, he resiimed his activities in 2023, kicking off a serious series of slammers on NoCopyrightSounds, High Tea, Simplify and, of course, Ridmic, and even remixing T & Sugah & NCT's legendary Stardust in the process! Not just that, he's also filled his bookings calendar with appearances at Let It Roll, High Tea Amsterdam, and Hospitality in Zürich - so where's the Liquicity festival booking, promoters?? To help us endure the wait for this, in my eyes, unavoidable inevitability, Rex bestowed us with a true Blessing, complete with wonderful vocals, punchy drum action, and a rextremely catchy, anthemic synth lead. Siimply the best.

BALA, Gid Sedgwick - Miracle

Lastly, something completely different: Someone I hadn't featured on here yet, the one and only BALA! I can tell by your raised eyebrows that you have no idea what or who I'm talking about here, so allow me to zoom out a bit. All the way over in Barcelona, Enric Balaguer Valentin has been entranced with all things Liquicity for basically all of his life. Especially Logistics' The Trip and just generally everything soulful instantly spoke to him and became his "once in a lifetime love", but the longer he was subscribed to the channel, the more he also fell in love with all things Dancefloor. Flash forward to early 2020s, at the doors of Liquicity festival, when he decided to take matters into his own hands and do something about the state of DnB in the Catalonian capital.

The Valentimeline goes something like this: In 2022, he got his very first decks and started DJing. Amidst his very first uploaded set and his followup Liquicity tribute mix, he not only played out his very first set, he also started picking up the production in the background. As part of the Zerotonine crew since 2023, he quickly racked up supporting credits for the likes of T & Sugah, Millbrook, METHOD, whose mixes inspired him to pursue this in the first place, and Lexurus, who became his mentor on the production side of things. Guest mixes on METHOD's channel and SYNCHRONIC, an interview on Spanish radio station Digital Hits FM, and while he would continue to smash out bangers on the Dancefloor with Zerotonine, he also took things one step further, and launched his very own event series Automata, which very soon also turned into an outright label! After releasing his first ever tune in early 2023, a bootleg of Dom Dolla's Saving Up, he also participated in Liquicity's wonderful yearly DJ contest not once, but twice, both times not quite cracking the very top spots but still earning himself the finalist badges, and enchanting literal thousands of listeners in the process.

Even outside of that, he's had a smash year though: just this year, BALA has supported and/or invited over Low:r, Hugh Hardie, Subsonic, Tantrum Desire, Alcemist and MUZZ, got booked to play High Tea Festeaval in Amsterdam, met me at Liquicity, released his first original Think About Me and, well, now fulfilled a life-long dream with Miracle on Ridmic! With genre veteran Gid Sedgwick delivering amazing-as-ever vocals, we are taken on a joyride through an entrancing atmosphere, the winning combo of charming chuggy bass and hard-hitting drums, and a euphoric, BALArmingly catchy synth lead that won't leave your brain anytime soon. Welcome to the BALAxy of dreams, my friend.

Conclusion

So many terrific names under one roof? Count me all the way in.

Other Dancefloor from this week:

Bensley, Voicians - Letting Go
NGHTMRE - Unsound 2 (Remixes)
Various Artists - Uprising: Vol 3 💎
Andy C, whoismoli - Positions
Various Artists - Matcha Latte (High Tea Music Presents) 💎

2. Delirium. - Blue Days 💎 [Automata Music]

Recommended if you like: Skylark, Synergy, sastruga

Speaking of Barcelona and more specifically Automata Music - they just put out a rather sick tune by someone called Delirium. Let's check out what this is all about!

Based in Automata's base of operation, Barcelona, spanish newcomer Alejandro Delgado Guillén, under the Delirium. banner, has basically only been around for a bit more than a year. Roughly half a year after uploading his very first set in early 2023, Alejandro started sharing his very own productions with the world. From the DnB sonics of No Escape or Eternal to the chill garage of Far Too Close and even Hardgroove/Techno of WAKE UP FUCKED UP with Hermit, you never quite know what you're gonna get, just that it's gonna be sick. Aside from that, he's also been massively involved in his Missing Page venture, with which he's aiming to build a platform for his and other people's music, events to be held all over Barcelona, and even clothing!

However, before that comes to full fruition, our Hidden Gem Of The Week™️ Alejandro brings his first-ever release to the masses, via BALA's Automata Music! Founded just a few months ago, the Barcelona-based brand has already breathed a ton of life into the local scene, organising quickly sold-out events, and releasing music by both more established names like Vypes, Tanukichi, Jrace & Albert White and Kevala and all sorts of newcomers like Insmniak, Xtinctor, Melic and, well, our man of the hour Delirium.!

While the label does sport a lot of Dancefloor in its short but sweet back catalogue, it's open for anything DnB and thus welcomed Alejandro's moody techy journey Blue Days with open arms. No surprise there, considering just how vibey it is! Especially the main ingredient, the enchanting gated vocal chopperinos wandering all over the place, gets me, but it's the contrast with the filthiness interjecting every now and then that really puts this one over the top. The constantly evolving drumwork and large waves of bass are just the cherry on top!

A strong debut that makes me incredibly hyped for more. Alejandope!

Other techy things from this week:

HRSPX, Dübël - HUMMINGBIRDS / AVIA 💎
Synergy - Falling
ERWI, Qrawlly - WISH U
Kevala - Closure EP
Former - GRONINGEN
Broma - Elbow Room EP 💎