This week in dance music: DJ Snake graced the cover of Billboard France ahead of his giant stadium show in Paris last weekend. “With all humility, I don’t claim to represent France,” the producer said in the story. “I represent a guy from Paris, who’s Franco-Algerian, and I just try my best to do interesting things.”
The week saw a flood of lineup announcements, with San Francisco’s Portola going hard in the paint with a bill featuring LCD Soundsystem, The Chemical Brothers, The Prodigy, Underworld and the queen Christina Aguilera. Rise Festival, an indie event returning to a desert location near Las Vegas in October, also came out swinging with a lineup that includes headliners Calvin Harris, Rüfüs du Sol and John Mayer. Kygo’s Palm Tree Festival announced an expansion to St. Tropez this July with an event that will feature headliners A$AP Rocky and Swedish House Mafia, and Philadelphia’s Making Time dropped a bill featuring Four Tet, Boy Harsher and many more for its fest in September.
And also — IMS Dubai announced that it will host its second ever event this November; Hugel and Flume and Rüfüs Du Sol made moves on the dance chart. We spoke with CAA’s Ferry Rais-Shaghaghi and Sphere’s Erin Calhoun about how they helped bring the Anyma residency to life, we spoke with PinkPantheress about her excellent Fancy That mixtape and we spoke with Carl Falk, the Swedish songwriter/producer and former Avicii collaborator who completed the production on the newly released Avicii track “Let’s Ride Away,” a country collab with vocals from Elle King.
Meanwhile, EDC Las Vegas starts today at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and if you’re not going, you can still catch the action on the livestream.
And finally, amid an exceptionally busy release week, these are the best new tracks.
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SG Lewis, “Back Of My Mind”
U.K. favorite SG Lewis releases his first new music of the year today with “Back of My Mind.” The song is positively warm, with washes of dreamy, emotive synth creating the pillowy foundation for Lewis’ own soft focus vocals. An about face from Lewis’ sexy, clubby 2024 project Club Heat, “Back of My Mind” has a production that’s at once thoroughly modern and reminiscent of ’90s rave, electronic music’s current throwback era of choice. Production was completed alongside frequent collaborator TEED, whose characteristically sleek fingerprints are all over this one.
“After spending last year focusing on ‘Club Heat’ and ‘Forever Days’, it felt right for the first taste of the forthcoming album to be a track that I’m singing on,” Lewis says. “‘Back of My Mind’ is a track about grief in all its forms, and the catharsis that can be provided by music. I wanted to create something introspective lyrically and it draws inspiration from a lot of the music I was listening to when I started producing, such as ’90s trance and early prog house.” The song is out via Forever Days/Astralwerks.
Listen to “Back of My Mind” here.
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Axwell & Carma, “Until the Lights Go Out”
Axwell recently told us about how his perfectionist streak makes him “the slowest person on earth” in terms of making music. And he wasn’t kidding, as his new track out today (May 16) is his first solo release in seven years. But the Swedish producer, who’s of course also one third of Swedish House Mafia, has made something worth the wait.
A collaboration with U.K. duo Carma, “Until The Lights Go Out” maintains the big size and classic build/release structure of some of the producer’s famous EDM-era productions, but the track otherwise evolves his sound, fusing screechy, wind-up synths and a galloping BPM into something sophisticated (and naturally, pristinely produced) and which still contains the singalong melodies that define so much of the Axwell and Axwell-adjacent output. The song is out via his own Axwell imprint.
Listen to “Until the Lights Go Out” here.
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Sofia Kourtesis with Daphni, “Unidos”
Peruvian producer Sofia Kourtesis announces a forthcoming EP, Volver, in tandem with the project’s lead single, “Unidos.” The track is a collaboration with Daphni, the dancier alter-ego of Caribou, and together the pair make a textured, sophisticated and exuberant slice of peaktime IDM, with hand drums, strings and a vocal sample that insists “you’ve gotta believe” altogether building to something truly joyful. Volver will be out on August 1 via Ninja Tune.
Listen to “Unidos” here.
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Illenium & Hayla, “In My Arms”
A week after announcing that he signed with Republic Records, Illenium comes hot out the gates with his first release on the label, “In My Arms.” The track is a collaboration with Hayla, one of dance music’s current defining voices, and here each artist dials up their respective talents to 11, with the song fusing Illenium’s soaring, anthemic future bass with Hayla’s power-lunged, chest thumping vocals. The song builds to a kaleidoscopic drop while pulling hard on all the emotional heartstrings.
Listen to “In My Arms” here.
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Deep Dish & Eynka feat. Wrabel, “Midnight”
Revered techno duo Deep Dish release their first new single in a decade with “Midnight.” The track is a collab with U.K. trio Eynka and American singer-songwriter Wrabel, and together the group makes something gorgeous and hypnotic, with the melodic techno approach sounding thoroughly modern while the piano flourishes evoke Robert Miles’ 1995 trance classic, “Children.”
“Since reuniting in 2024, we’ve been deep in the studio crafting music to test at shows and guide the evolution of Deep Dish,” the pair say in a joint statement. “The reaction to ‘Midnight’ during our sets has been incredible, and now feels like the right time to share it with the world. This one’s for the fans who’ve embraced this exciting new chapter — and there’s more to come this year.” “Midnight” is out via Armada Music.
Listen to “Midnight” here.
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Dom Dolla, “No Room for a Saint”
Next month will see the release of the Brad Pitt-starring F1® THE MOVIE, and ahead of the racing film, Dom Dolla releases a speed demon of a track from its soundtrack. “No Room For a Saint” is slick and muscular, giving an ’80s vibe as the production forms around vocals from U.K. singer Nathan Nicholson. Ahead of his set this weekend at EDC Las Vegas (which aptly happens at a racing track), Dolla himself notes that he “wrote this one specifically for the movie soundtrack, not for my dj sets… best consumed on a car stereo.”
Listen to “No Room for a Saint” here.
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Diplo feat. Artemas, “Brain”
After a relatively quite period, Diplo is back again with “Brain,” a collab with English indie singer/songwriter/producer Artemas. The production accomplishes a lot in two minutes and 39 seconds, leaning into both the super-online terrain of current dance chart titans like Odetari along with the always simmering, Memphis-rooted and now global phonk genre. A press release notes that Diplo has in fact been on a “deep dive” into phonk over the last few years, with this song serving as the second release from his new phonk-oriented project, d00mscrvll. The song is out on a label of the same name in conjunction with Black 17 Media.
Listen to “Brain” here.
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Scuba, “Animatronic”
British underground mainstay Scuba releases the excellent, seven-plus minute “Animatronic,” which takes its time unfurling into a production’s at once spare, lush and altogether immaculate. Out on Sasha’s Last Night on Earth label, it also comes with the similarly excellent B-side, “Waterfloor.”
Listen to “Animatronic” here.
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Delerium feat. Sarah Maclachlan, “Silence (John Summit Remix)”
Tiësto created what’s widely considered one of the best dance tracks of all time with his 2000 remix of Delerium and Sarah Maclachlan’s 1999 song “Silence,” and it’s clear John Summit knows he’s thus working with a holy text of the genre via his own new edit. “The original is one of my all time favs.. a true dance classic and to have the honor of adding my touch to it I don’t take lightly,” Summit writes of his rework. “The goal was to keep the soul of the original while adding a modern production to give this timeless record more life.. Hope u guys dig this one as much as i do.”
Listen to Summit’s remix of “Silence” here.
