Fred again..and Skepta Courtesy of Warner Music Group
This week in dance music: We met Lenny Pearce, the Australian DJ who’s making techno for toddlers and throwing baby raves around the world and also caught up with French favorite Folamour who shared that while he at one point felt “dead inside” while playing clubs, his new house album helped revive his sound and spirit.
Meanwhile, Serbia’s Exit Festival announced that it may leave the country after losing government funding after supporting student protestors. Sophie’s collaborators are celebrating the ten-year anniversary of the late producer’s 2015 compilation album Product with an expanded anniversary edition that will feature a pair of previously unreleased singles — “Ooh” and “Get Higher” — along with “Unisil,” a Product-era track that was released in 2021.
Also this week: Fred again.. threw a pop-up show in Brooklyn with special guests Skepta and PlaqueBoyMix (more on that below), Billboard Dance celebrated ten years since its launch, with the vertical’s founder Matt Medved penning a piece on the process that brought it all together. SG Lewis announced that he’s releasing a new album this fall, The Chainsmokers remixed Charli xcx’s “party 4 u,” Irish rock group Inhaler covered Kavinsky’s classic “Nightcall,” Billboard Italy did a deep dive on the country’s Adriatic Sound festival and its aims to become a techno destination and Marhsmello launched a pop-punk band, Underbrook, under his given name Chris Comstock. The group released its debut single “Head’s Up” today.
And last but never least, amid one of those moments when a fleet of producers all drop new music at the same time, these are the best new tracks of the week.
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Fred again.., Skepta & PlaqueBoyMax, “Victory Lap”
This past Tuesday, Fred again.. turned turned on the power of singular hype machine via a four-hour Twitch livestream and a pop-up show in Brooklyn that followed. The high point of the festivities, and in fact their reason for being, is Fred’s new single “Victory Lap.” The ominous and sharp-edged single features Skepta (who turned up on both the livestream and at the show and also dropped another dance single with Sammy Virji in late May) and New Jersey-born rapper/streamer PlaqueBoyMax. The track is quick two minutes and 45 seconds, but accomplishes a lot, packing a punch and illumanting Fred’s current state of mind as his first release of 2025.
“Victory Lap” is out via Atlantic Records. Listen to it here.
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Swedish House Mafia, “Wait So Long”
The trio seem to be making a ‘lil joke in the title of their latest, “Wait So Long,” as the track is their first since 2014’s “Lioness.” But jokes aside, the single accomplishes what Swedish House Mafia have indicated is their priority after emerging on the other side of the EDM era: making timeless dance music that works for the club and fits inside the house realm from which the trio take so much influence. But this is still Swedish House Mafia, so of course the track possesses a chest-thumping, totally soulful vocal rendered in a melody you’re likely to have in your head all weekend.
The track debuted during a pop-up show in the guys’ native Stockholm earlier this week and is out on their newly launched label, SUPERHUMAN MUSIC. Listen to it here.
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John Summit, Gorgon City & Rhys From the Sticks, “Is Everybody Having Fun?”
John Summit and Gorgon City have a long history, with Summit performing a pandemic-era rooftop set in his native Chicagoland area with Gorgon City’s Kye Gibbon just before he moved to Miami and blew all the way up. The title of their reunion track is clearly rhetorical, with its galloping beat and spare tech house production functioning as a whole-ass party packed into a tight 2:49.
“Is Everybody Having Fun?” is out via Experts Only/REALM Records. Listen to it here.
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Kenya Grace, “Mr. Cool”
Kenya Grace pushes her sound forward with the slinky “Mr. Cool” while exploring the same thematic terrain as her breakout single “Strangers.” Like that hit, a Dance/Electronic Songs No. 1, this newest single explores the quick-fire world of modern dating and always slippery endeavor of seeing your old flame with someone new, with Grace delivering acerbic lyrics in silky vocals that lay over a tech house production that coolly simmers, much like the song’s protagonist herself.
“Mr. Cool” is out on Major Recordings/Warner Records. Listen to it here.
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Four Tet, “Into Dust (Still Falling)”
You could — and someone probably should — write an entire book on Four Tet’s largely unparalleled ability to generate both intensely hard bass music (as heard primarily in his live sets) and then also tracks like his latest, “Into Dust (Still Falling).” Managing, as ever, to elicit loads of emotion via a galloping beat and a plaintive vocal sample from Mazzy Star’s 1993 “Into Dust,” the track shimmers while and shapeshifts, forming into a gorgeous thing that’s simultaneously richly layered and greater than the sum of its parts.
“Into Dust (Still Falling)” is out on Text Records/XL Recordings. Listen to it here.
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Ian Snow, “Ice Waves”
Rising Chicago producer Ian Snow demonstrates why he’s one to watch with the spooky, soaring “Ice Waves,” on which Snow brings melodic bass to psychedelic heights, creating something at once heady and anthemic. The song was inspired by a near fatal car accident that inspired Snow to consider how he wants to be remembered. “As the car rushed toward me at 40 mph, I had limited choices: crash and burn, or rise above,” he says in a statement. “I closed my eyes and jumped. I vividly remember flying through the air thinking two things: the first being, ‘Welp, I’ll see ya on the other side,’ assuming I’d either wake up from a coma, or death. Followed by, ‘Holy shit, did I just clear that?’ before I rammed into the windshield, shattered it and barreled through the air like a spaceship crash-landing on an unknown planet.” He left the hospital unscathed, with a goal to take music-making more seriously. This track is clearly the crystallization of that ambition.
“Ice Waves” is out on Slander’s Heaven Sent label. Listen to it here.
