I love and hate house music most. With anything taken mainstream, we’re all bombarded with bloodsuckers making a buck off of it, but beneath all that is an underground of creators making something fresh. My favorite, like all other things in life, is with soul.
And even in this soulful house playlist, there are many different styles. From horizontal disco to deep house, there are so many shades of sexuality, and it’s only gettin better.
The first time I ran into Madelyn Grant’s name was on Odesza’s Sun Models. I had recently uploaded the track to SoundCloud and she had contacted me about including her name in the title. The only reason I hadn’t in the first place was because they really chopped and skewed her vocals, making her voice barely recognizable. But she was real nice about it and it seemed more than fair.
About two months later and I see Madelyn Grant on FKJ’s Waiting. I didn’t remember she was on Odesza’s track at first, but once I did I was all the more in love. Madelyn has a breathtaking voice, but even better she knows how to use it – a much bigger problem with most vocalists.
Since then Madelyn has collaborated with a favorite of mine, Emancipator. I asked her how she got to collaborate with all these legitimate producers and she said, I sent them my demos.
That’s it. In Odesza’s case they were requesting female vocalists, but the other two she just sent them a sample. That’s all it took. How the fuck does that happen? Oh wait, that doesn’t. Minus with Madelyn.
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I’ve put together a playlist of my favorite songs of her’s as well as another list for producers she should also send her music to. Although, this time I think they should be doing the reaching out.
Relax in the House is even chiller to dance to than our Horizontal Disco list, but both can also be used for relaxing too. This however lays off the lyricists and goes for deep, melodic, four on the floor kind of music with short vocal cuts.
If you don’t like house though, I’m not sure you’ll want to chill in your house with this.
Our last deep house list tacked on UK garage at the end, it does take over much of these lists, but as industry standards go it’s all deep house now. Though most of the house here has some influences from garage — grimier sounds with emphasis off the beat.
We start this off by sampling some of the best styles in electro soul and go from the playful down to the more sedentary. There are a few songs that deal with heartbreak, but the sound is still right.
Have fun with your loved one with this one.
Like the iPhone every year, this is our best playlist yet! It really is.
House has been my obsession for the past few years and my favorite kind is the mid-tempo, upbeat summertime jams. Which may or may not turn out to be called Tropical House. Or Summer House. Or Horizontal Disco. It’s up in the air really.
A few tracks do stereotypically incorporate the steel drums, but we did cover more ground than that. We also decided this should be more comprehensive than our usual playlists because we wanted to get all the trop house personas in one place. There are quite a few interesting characters.
Panda has sparked up a mix for us.. or at least inspired one. ‘Sputnik Moment’ has a few pieces with the piano that get as deep as Madeaux’s ‘Song #2‘ did almost two years back.
This is how most of our playlists come about – two songs sharing one feeling and finding all the other tracks that do the same. We’re well on our way in compiling this list, but have a tease in the meantime with Panda’s heartful piano house piece.
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Looking back over this last list for 2013, I’ve realized one major flaw to it. There are no women on here. We’ve had our love for women this year, but this list contains our most obsessed about music with musicians consistently present throughout the year.
Doja Cat was our closest girl, but we only fell for one of hers. She did have a lot of other potentials that fell short because the production wasn’t to the level of that voice. Producers, this girls got talents!
London Grammar probably has the most right to be up here, but I credited their best to their collab with Disclosure and I didn’t fall for ‘Strong’ in time (wish it was still 2013). They’re also two-thirds dude, so that didn’t help them either […]
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Try not to think of EDM or electronic dance music as purely just the dubstep, deadbeat music that the mass majority like to think of it as. Dance music has been filled with electronic sounds for decades and its reach is almost all encompassing. From disco to house this music has come a long way and we’re just at the tipping point of things to come (aren’t we always).
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Panda’s new delight is a big house beat that brings one of the best builds of the year. So good the drop couldn’t keep up. Unlike their ‘Eighty Nine‘ track, which was done so damn different. Both tracks are recommended with headphones, as per usual, but more especially.
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