This week in dance music: Chase & Status clocked their first U.K. No. 1 hit with their recently released Stormzy collab “Backbone,” The Tim Bergling Foundation announced an auction of clothes, musical equipment and other memorabilia belonging to late producer Avicii, the team behind Ibiza’s Hï and Ushuaïa pulled off a pretty out of this world PR stunt to reveal that their new club is coming next year, we chatted with Sofi Tukker about croissants upon the release of their new album, DJ Snake distanced himself from Lil Jon’s widely celebrated performance of “Turn Down For What” during the 2024 Democratic National Convention, the video for Swedish House Mafia’s “Don’t You Worry Child” hit a billion views on Spotify, Chris Lake and Vintage Culture were announced among the headliners for Costa Rica’s Ocasa Festival early next year, we did a deep dive into the business of touring travel logistics (and why DJs always want to stay in the quietest hotels) and Outkast sued electronic act ATLiens for giving themselves the same name as the hip-hop legends’ classic 1996 album.
And as always, it all comes back to the music. These are the best new dance tracks of the week.
Mura Masa, Curve 1
English producer Mura Masa is back with his fourth studio album Curve 1, which — with its club focus, no f–ks attitude and an orange-red version of Charli XCX’s season-defining chartreuse — can be considered a counterpart to Brat. Tracks about doing drugs (“I don’t do drugs, but with you I do,” Daniela Lalita says while guesting on previously released single “Drugs”), sex (with a female voice purring in French on the otherwise sharp-edged “SXC”) and good old making out (“We Are Making Out”) give the project a happily messy YA feel, although the production throughout is fully mature, frequently lush, occasionally soaring and simply just cool throughout. The project is the first release on Mura Masa’s own Pond Recordings.
“Feels very different to be releasing a record this time around, being independent affords so much more control and connection to the work,” the artist born Alexander Crossan wrote on Instagram. “I wanted to make something no frills, no cynical music industry narrative, no manipulative backstory. Just music that I think is really great and that people can gather around. Can’t wait for you to hear it. My love to everybody who worked with me on this, and most of all my love to anybody who listens and connects with it.”
Sofi Tukker, Bread
Sophie Hawley Weld and Tucker Halpern recently told us that the concept of their new album, Bread, is both simple — the title is an acronym for “be really energetic and dance” — and deep, with the title representing ideas about satiating pleasure with abandon and experiencing nourishing abundance. The visual aesthetic the pair has created around this world reflects these themes, particularly in the video for “Woof,” which features the duo and special guest Kah-Lo (who very much eats on her guest verse) riding around New York City on a double-decker while partaking in many forms of pleasure, from massages to dancing to making out cradling a puppy. Out on Ultra Records, the entire 10-track album contains this same sort of exuberance and style, making Bread a must devour.
Yaeji, “booboo”
Yaeji says she made her latest after a period of deep introspection, with the producer finding — as so many of us do — that after a lot of soul searching, it feels really good to just dance, hard. Debuted during her recent Boiler Room set in New York, “booboo” is spare, tough and funky, with the producer slowly turning up the dial on a buzzsaw bassline, adding punches of kickdrum and then turning it all off to sample her own 2017 breakout hit “raingurl” before just encouraging everyone “to shake your booty from the left to the right.” The track is out on XL Recordings.
Swedish House Mafia, “Lioness” (Francis Mercier Remix)
Francis Mercier works his considerable magic on the most recent Swedish House Mafia release, with the Haitian producer stripping the flutes, relaxing the BPM and taking the percussion down by a few levels and altogether turning “Lioness” into a steamy, dreamy, hard-emoting afrobeats affair. “This one hits extra hard for me,” Mercier writes of the remix, “as I remember buying tickets to all of their NY shows. Nothing is impossible.” Mercier has been touring heavily this summer, with dates over the next few weeks including Burning Man, New York Fashion Week and shows across Ibiza.
Mau P & Diplo feat. Gunna, “Receipts”
Mau P further further establishes himself as an absolute star of the new generation of producers with “Receipts” a hypnotic club-focused collab with Diplo and Gunna that was debuted during the two producers’ four hour b2b at Coachella this past April. “‘Receipts’ came to life as Wes and I were preparing for our b2b Coachella set which was also my debut performance at the festival,” Mau P says. “We had been talking for hours about music and our various influences, after which Wes asked me the obvious question – ‘Should we try to create a song together that we can play at Coachella?’ He had recently done a session with Gunna and gave me an acapella to mess around with. One night during Miami Music Week, I came home from a show feeling pretty hyped up, opened my laptop and landed on the first version of this track. From there, Wes and I went back and forth to nail it, and eventually premiered ‘Receipts’ at Coachella.”
Seven Lions & Subtronics feat. Skylar Grey, “I’ll Wait For You”
Seven Lions and Subtronics join forces (as “Seventronics,” naturally), with a track as huge and hard as you’d expect from the pair. But while both producers specialize in bass, they’re also both masters of layering on shimmering flourishes that give their work a deep space feel, even as it hits you over the head. Vocals from Skyler Grey give “I’ll Wait For You” added softness and power. The single is out on Seven Lions’ own Ophelia Records.
