This week in dance music: Anyma added two more shows to his upcoming run at Sphere in Las Vegas, bringing the total number of shows to eight; Barry Can’t Swim picked up three 2024 AIM Awards nominations; Ultra 2025 released its phase one lineup, which will feature the debut “retro5pective set from dedmau5, a new psytrance stage and much more; we previewed the trailer for a forthcoming documentary about the ’90s rave scene in San Francisco; we recapped the best moments of Portola 2024; an auction of Avicii’s personal items including clothing and instruments raised $750,000 for the Tim Bergling Foundation; Black Coffee, Fisher and Chase & Status were among the winners at the 2024 DJ Awards in Ibiza; Beatport announced that it’s again awarding $150,000 in grants to groups supporting diversity and equality in dance music; and to round out it all out, these are the best new dance projects of the week.
Caribou, Honey
For 13 years, Dan Snaith has masterfully juggled two music aliases: the folksy-electronica live band Caribou, and the club-minded Daphni. While Caribou’s albums post-Andorra have inched closer to the dance floor, his latest, Honey, sounds like an equal meeting of the two projects. Singles like the sparkling “Volume” and bass-wobbling “Honey” deliver the heft demanded of festival main stages, while other tracks like “Do Without You” and “Campfire” are heavy in their pensive moods, lower-to-the-ground production and vocals. “Climbing” is the album’s standout, all disco and sunshine in its squiggling synth crescendos and buoyant melody. It’s a light-hearted tune for closing a set, and somehow, a bittersweet cap on our own summer. The party’s not over just yet, however, as Snaith tours Honey across North America starting next month. — KRYSTAL RODRIGUEZ
2hollis, “gold”
The Los Angeles savant further establishes his hot new thing status with the punchy “gold,” an arrangement of crunchy staccato, skittering percussion and eventual climax of gunfire gabber. These elements are balanced with a woozy, almost sweet melody sung by the producer, who also directed the accompanying music video, which features 2hollis and a group of dancers moshing under a strobe light and rain coming down inside a warehouse, continuing the release’s hard/soft aesthetic. 2hollis just got off tour supporting rapper Ken Carson and is launching his own nine-date North American tour later this month. — KATIE BAIN
yunè pinku, “Reckless Sensation”
UK artist yunè pinku describes her new song “Reckless Sensation” as the “ecstasy of embodying love rather than looking for it.” The serpentine trip-hop track lives somewhere in the haze between haunting and euphoric, with a warmth and sensuality that permeate the spectral space beneath pinku’s soft, siren-like voice. Altogether approaching a transcendence evocative of Massive Attack’s 1998 classic “Teardrop,” the track is from pinku’s new Scarlet Lamb EP, on which she decorates her sonic universe with gothic imagery, citing Jane Eyre, Dracula and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as lyrical touchpoints After that, find pinku onstage starting next month when she joins Caribou on his North American tour. — K.R.
Confidence Man, “Real Move Touch”
Confidence Man are coming out of an eventful summer, which entailed performing to a massive crowd at Glastonbury and adding their fabric Presents compilation to the clubbing institution’s mix series. But they’ve got something even bigger waiting on the horizon: their third studio album, 3AM (LA LA LA), which lands on Oct. 18. The Australian band are dropping another preview in the form of a double-single, “Control/Real Move Touch.” Here, they serve up house music two ways: the A-side is a technicolor track bubbling with acid synths and ravey stabs that feel both infectiously joyous and nostalgic, while “Real Move Touch” calls back to the old-school, too, but with glossy ‘90s house that’s both luxurious and lively, as a mash-up of Crystal Waters-esque diva house and sound-system culture with vocals from reggae legend Sweetie Irie.
“I remember him coming into our tiny little studio,” Confidence Man’s Janet Planet says of Irie, “and then he’s like, ‘Do you mind if I blaze up in here?’ And we said, ‘Hell yeah!’ And he was like, ‘Great, I was just checking you guys were real rock stars.’” — K.R.
Ben Hemsley Feat. Rose Gray, “Tidal”
An unstable relationship drifts out into the deep seas on Ben Hemsley’s new single “Tidal,” featuring vocalist Rose Gray. After previewing the track in his sets at Creamfields, A State of Trance, and his Ibiza residency, the British producer has released the track in its entire 10-minute glory. A brisk BPM and sighing vocal loops give “Tidal” a sense of urgency that circles Gray’s distressed vocals, while extended, sweeping builds create a looming wall of sound akin to its namesake and subsequent drop, a euphoric crashing of melodies and textures.
“‘Tidal’ allowed me to really explore what trance means to me on a deeper level,” Hemsley says. “The extended length gave me the space to play with melodies and atmospheres, taking inspiration from ’90s records that I love. Trance was my first love and it’s the direction you’ll see me going in moving forwards. — K.R.
East Forest, Music For Mushrooms
Ahead of the Oct. 10 release of his documentary of the same name, producer, multi-instrumentalist and wellness practitioner East Forest releases his album, Music For Mushrooms. The 10-track project is composed of music played by the artist during guided psychedelic ceremonies, hence its name. (The project firmly sits in the world of music made specifically for psychedelic spaces.) You won’t find ravey beats over the album’s 59 sublime minutes, with the project instead made of gentle piano, violin, flute and a host of other instruments that altogether build a glimmering, soul-stirring world unto itself. To that end, tracks are named for each place the ceremony it was recorded at took place, capturing the sounds of Big Sur, Calif., Vancouver, Canada and the literal and figurative great beyond. — K.B.
