Dance Playlist and Track Reviews

So I've got another selection of great dance tracks for you guys, just a collection of tracks that have been worming their way into positions as permanent installations in my brain. Here we'll move through some lovely garage beats via choppy vocals to 2-step and a couple of choice remixes, all perfectly suited to getting you moving throughout the night. Also obviously these are all fairly high scoring as they're my personal pick of tracks. Enjoy!

Shower Scene – Huxley

This track just has everything. With its classic UK garage stylings it builds over a simple but brutal beat to a drop that could knock out almost any contenders so far this year. We are treated throughout to a tense vocal loop and some stabbing synths but it's the force of this track that makes it a winner, not the precious details. Gonna be a hard one to beat.

4.5/5

Locked – Four Tet

Hebden's latest single for Text came off his upcoming fabriclive mix. Four Tet crafts a simple house shuffle and interlaces a few meaty bass drops and a luscious pitch-shifting synth melody to create a real winner. It's restrained but tough while remaining pretty, exactly what we've come to expect from the Tet's more dance-orientated releases.

4/5

Another Girl – Jacques Greene

I know this isn't the newest track but in my opinion it's one of the best of the year so far and so I had to squeeze it in somewhere. Greene's shimmery, patient sound is made up of some sharp snares and deep bass throbs, but it's those emotive, sighing, story-telling vocals that give this cut its special shimmer and that will keep you coming back. That ecstatic looped sigh has gotta be one of the sounds of the year.

5/5

Culture Clubs – Ital

Again, I know this isn't super new, but I've not found space to plug it until now. Ital's new release for Not Not Fun's dance label 100% Silk is better than I could've hoped, and is definitely in my list of best tracks of the year so far. A simple house click is undercut by warping, pitch-shifting synths that never quite sit still, and when that vaguely tropical melody comes in it's too clear this track is on another level; a gorgeously detailed composition likely to cause euphoria.

5/5

RDI (Girl Unit Remix) – Breton

Fresh from club anthem Wut, the best of Night Slugs serves us a delicious slice of woozy bass in this remix. Sirens cry out over harsh synth loops and ocean-deep sub bass to deliver a hot (yes, and heavy) tune that it's very difficult to stop listening to. Gun gestures at the ready.

4/5

Box of Birds – Antix

Okay, a psytrance track from a while back is definitely not the 'coolest' inclusion into this playlist but I just discovered it and I really can't stop listening. Here a clipped distending rhythm contorts around a heavy bassline and immediately fills the room, resulting in a real unexpected dancefloor favourite for me. Each change is welcome and interesting while the core of the track is always guaranteed to get you moving, and that's all you need really.

4.5/5

Lotus Flower (Jacques Greene RMX) – Radiohead

I'm half harking back to the fantastic Twelves remix of Reckoner I put in a playlist a while back, this track luxuriously plays Yorke's inimitable vocals over a constantly shifting composition that switches up every minute into a new part. It's fantastic as a whole and one of the better Radiohead remixes floating around, but be sure to stick it out to the full-throttle beat masterfully conjured up in the fourth minute.

4/5

Into the Night (Nicolas Jaar Remix) – Azari & Iii

End of the night house closes the playlist with my very favourite track of the moment. Followers of this blog will know I'm a big fan of Nico Jaar, and the very simple reason for this is that everything he touches... well, you know. This masterful rework strikes me as a great deal more thought-provoking than A&I's straight-up original, with an emphasis on that warm piano and an irresistable beat coupling midway through. The acid deviation towards the end of the track is oh-so-welcome, but what really shines here is Jaar's teasingly clipped vocal samples that make you wait before the whole line is revealed in its isolated, emotive glory. As always, a stellar production from Jaar tinging effortless clubby warmth with the slightest hint of melancholy he so interestingly brings to his compositions.

5/5