Odesza is going from the duo with a song that I love to the duo that I love. Even most good artists fall off after a few good hits, but Odesza is on their way to making the next stage in dance music. At least in my ears. But that’s more about their sound, lyrics is a different story.
I’m never one to pay too close attention to lyrics, I usually make up my own. And that’s exactly what I’ve done with Odesza’s latest, ‘Sun Models.’ Let me know what you think the chorus is singing and I’ll let you know what I made up, but my version is really just a well popularized phrase of three words. Odesza’s music, however, pictures it in a new light… even though they’re not even the right words.
[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/145961334" iframe="false" params="player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=292929" height="18" /]I swear I’ve heard Izzy Bizu’s White Tiger before, but the best ones always feel that at first. Izzy’s got a pop in that faint rasp voice and her piano counterpart Mika Barroux plays off it well. Kinda jealous of him right now – for that piano dexterity, yes, but more so this look she gives him in their music video.
[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/99395894" iframe="false" params="player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=292929" height="18" /]I don’t like throwin up previews, but someone won’t release their full ‘Instinct,’ so I’m gonna be all whiny about it. And I’m gonna praise Jade Blue on something I’m sure she like any female producer doesn’t really want to hear, but that’s what happens when you tease with previews!
I’ve gotta confession to make, I haven’t posted a female producer in a while. Ill-esha was probably our last. I know bloggers get too wrapped up in trivial things like this, but good female producers are rare. Good producers are rare.
And I wouldn’t be spoutin all this shit, let alone post it, if she wasn’t amazing. Just when I think Lxury is topping the best in the UK electronic scene, Jade Blue may be upping it one more. But we’ll have to see how the full version turns out first.
[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/106002744" iframe="false" params="player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=292929" height="18" /]I’m not gonna make this a bigger deal than it is, we’re not here for the imagery, but Spook Black did a piss poor job on his visuals (mostly video). His voice, however, has something I’ve only heard from a few others in the last decade – the first I can remember from our very own The Weeknd back in 2010. Though The Weeknd went the elusive route in the beginning, something Spooky should have considered.
We did save him for our one-thousandth post, so hopefully that’ll show our appreciation for his potential.
[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/137277440" iframe="false" params="player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=292929" height="18" /]Highlighting singles have long dominated on here. We’re coming up on our thousandth post, this will make 999, and we’re slightly shifting from singles towards playlists. We really just no longer have time or the writing prowess to cover every single track we love.
Pop remixes especially have fallen back from the spotlight, but we’ve collected quite a few over the past few months and a playlist of the best seemed like the perfect way to share. We may not have much to say about every single track, but they all have taken their original and slapped a new style (usually better than the original).
[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/143929366" iframe="false" params="player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=292929" height="18" /]So I’ve got a running playlist of what I want to talk about next on here and these three tracks were coincidentally placed one after the other on it. All of which subtly use “baby” beautifully. They’re all good individually, but better as our baby trio.
[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/143303784" iframe="false" params="player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=292929" height="18" /]I don’t know why, but everything went electro over the years on here. I remember when Silence was nothing but hip-hop. Then I had that nagging bitch in the back of my head telling me to switch it up. Almost 5 years later and the emcee has faded away for a hot mess of other vocalists. But despite our lack of featuring it, we do find good hip-hop in the most random places.
Freddie Gibbs is someone maybe I should know, but I’ve had an odd path when it comes to hip-hop, and all music. The Cookin Soul pair, however, has been a favorite for some time. The two gentlemen made the top slot in our favorite Jay-Z mashups & remixes (or at least the top two).
[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/142574316" iframe="false" params="player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=292929" height="18" /]And now we’re posting disco with anime in it… if we only knew what this blog would turn into.
I wasn’t much for the overly cheerful vocals in some of my favorite anime movies, I choose the English dub, but it sure does sound good stylized to disco-house. Hopefully more foreign tracks fall into our laps like this, but any other language is a hard sell — only other one I know of right meow.
Also, check out YEARS’ rainbow vector thrill ride if you’re into this.
[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/138418207" iframe="false" params="player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=292929" height="18" /]Shiny Toy Guns reminds me of a few different music influences all rolled into one. First off, Chad Petree’s vocals sound a helluva lot like Damon Albarn’s of Gorillaz and Blur. A similar inflection in their voices, which seemed like a British thing but Chad’s from Oklahoma.
Other influences include Last Lynx and their ‘Killing Switch‘ song. It’s that male // female duet against a lighthearted, upbeat beat that lump the two songs together. It also reminds me of Shallow Hal’s club montage with that 90’s perception of what 70’s disco sounded like — but I’m not even gonna try to attempt to convince or prove it to you.
[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/132078641" iframe="false" params="player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=292929" height="18" /]I need to see this in a much more massive way. Whether it’s at a huge festival or on a movie that depicts it better, this one has bigger than ballroom potential. Luminaire doesn’t change it up much in his remix of GOLDSTAR, but a little bit in a lot of ways and really flips shit towards the end.
[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/142070198" iframe="false" params="player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=292929" height="18" /]