Dance music & news

DJ duo the Chainsmokers embraced their status as "the Nickelback of EDM" by covering the Alberta rockers, while Coldplay's Chris Martin has performed cover versions of work by music's biggest stars. Taking things a few steps beyond reinterpretations, the two groups have come together to release a new single.
The collaboration arrives in the form of "Something Just Like This," which features Martin's gentle vocals over a paint-by-numbers EDM chord progression. We hope there's an official Nickelba

Having first teamed up for Record Store Day 12-inch "Boa/Cold" back in 2014, UK producer the Bug (a.k.a. Kevin Martin) and drone metal warriors Earth have joined forces once more to release a full-length album. Titled Concrete Desert, the new effort will arrive next month through Ninja Tune.
Ten tracks in length, Concrete Desert is said to be "an astonishing, primal album of vast depth" that includes "pulsing soundscapes, ambient pinks and whites, and irre

Metabolism, London-based producer James Shaw's second full-length as Sigha, is another compelling exercise in darkly elegant techno. Full of incredibly deep bass and meticulously engineered high-end frequencies, it satisfies both as a dance record as well as a more academic deconstruction of the genre's core elements. It may be too conceptual at times for some, but it's a sophisticated piece of work by any measure. Richard D. James once famously described his desire to recreate, in a track,

The latest album by Spanish musician Piek, titled Despertar, takes inspiration from artists such as Bonobo, Sigur Ros and Moderat. Yet, while PR for the album mentions that no two tracks from it are wholly similar, but that's not exactly the case. On the positive side, the album revels in a full, boisterous sound, with an ethereal air that permeates it. For the most part, the track sequencing makes perfect sense, each addition feeding off or complementing the last, like the wonderfully subt

Some might recognize the name Kingdom from production highlights for artists like Dawn Richards and Kelela; clearly, he has a penchant for forward-thinking R&B. Stylistically, the production on his latest album takes cues from post-dubstep and modern hip-hop, resulting in an accessible electro-R&B sound that could move a dance floor or even creep into pop radio. The chilly synths and sparse arrangements are given life by the human vocals on most tracks, and the fact that these beats

There are moments in Karsten Pflum's Sleep Concert that are genuinely lovely; there are also one or two that are mind-numbingly linear. We can forgive the Danish sound artist this unevenness, though, given the scope of the project. It's no small thing to pull off a composition meant to guide its listeners through a full night's sleep. Does it work? Does the recording contribute to a good night's rest? Answering those questions would require a far larger sample size. In the meantime, we can

Solens Arc and Cory Arcane, David Letellier's previous two albums as Kangding Ray, found the producer distributing his hyper-experimental beatless electronic excursions — comfortably situated amidst the oeuvre of the Raster-Noton imprint — in more traditional 4/4 techno rhythms. Those double-albums were exercises in form and structure; his latest, Hyper Opal Mantis, strives to actuate the viscera. Letellier's first extended outing for the Stroboscopic Artefacts label, this three

Perhaps best known as a visual artist and collaborator with Arca, FKA twigs and Björk, Jesse Kanda's debut EP as doon kanda, entitled Heart, most closely resembles the abstract electronic works of the first of those collaborators, Arca — but isn't quite as extraordinary. Opener "Axolotl" is the most club-friendly track, with a pumping techno beat and a relatively simple but effective wailing, distorted synth melody. It could aptly soundtrack a street race, or a video game about s

Prolific Canadian sound artist Anne Sulikowski's latest release as Building Castles Out of Matchsticks is an intriguing, highly atmospheric journey into the psychological headspace of visionary science fiction author Philip K. Dick. It's appropriate, then, that the warped sonics she concocts evoke equal parts chilly alienation and nebulously familiar warmth, like the faded and distorted impression of a half-remembered dream, or the dissolving insights of a mushroom trip given form as undulating

Arca kept busy throughout 2016, hinting at an album titled Reverie, but instead releasing a free collection called Entranas in July. Now, the avant-garde electronic artist has confirmed full details for his next full-length album. Simply titled Arca, the LP will arrive on April 7 through XL Recordings. It marks his third studio album, following 2014's Xen and 2015's Mutant. The record arrives once again accompanied by artwork courtesy of Canadian-raised artist Jesse Kanda (who is about