Sporadic yet substantial, August featured a number of lengthy playlists, chock full of nu-disco, indie house and subdued electronic. Listen to the full (chronological) playlist of August songs below.
Goldroom has been at the forefront of the Nu Disco and Indie Dance scene since first exploding onto the blog scene with the bongo-laden Morgan’s Bay in 2011. In addition to touting one of the most ear-wormy guitar hooks you’ll hear, it earned LA producer Josh Legg a spot on the blog charts with each subsequent release.
On Monday he put out his latest release, Till Sunrise, which seemed as good a time as ever to put assemble a playlist of some of his best originals and remixes. Expect a lot of warm, padded synths, disco-inspired basslines, liberal marimba usage and unspeakably catchy choruses.
And yes, upon seeing that Goldroom image you may have an idea of where the inspiration for the Esthetick header came from.
Little bit of Miami Horror, part Niles Rodgers style guitar riff, a dash of Len’s Steal my Sunshine, some LA nu disco and a whole lot of summer vibes: The Knocks’ latest single Classic featuring Powers instantly garnered a spot on many a feel-good summer jam mix.
Not only that, but they wrote a very heartfelt letter announcing that this tune is the pinnacle of what they’ve been striving for for years. And it’s hard to disagree.
If yesterday’s fuzzed out sounds from Jungle didn’t quite satiate your need for sitting-around-in-the-sun music, then go ahead and try on this hour of slow-jam disco. Grab your favorite wine cooler and portable speakers and go get your sunburn on.
A couple of notes: 1. The first two songs are from my personal favorite mixtape of all time, Goldroom’s Sole Fixtape 7 and in tandem they were made for vacations. 2. A well-done edit of The Bee Gees can never go wrong and 3. The nine-minute re-imagination of Toto’s Africa to cap off this playlist is deserving of its self-described epicness.
image via CacheMonet
Over the last two to three years there have been some formative songs that triggered interest in, or perfectly define, one of the genres covered here on Esthetick—house, nu-disco, electronic pop, trap, tribal, etc. And since the current iteration of this blog is so recent and thus has missed out on supporting them in a timely manner, today’s post kicks off a weekly effort to create a full list of the best-but-maybe-overlooked tunes from this decade.
This week’s edition is filed under indie dance, covering landmark artists throughout my slow introduction to indie house and nu-disco.
Chordashian offers the most upbeat experience of the bunch (and the most free downloads), subtly leveraging Madonna and Lana Del Rey samples for engrossing and entirely danceable house music. Le Youth’s very successful C O O L incorporates Cassie’s ‘Me & You’ vocals, and managed to launch and grow as the nostalgic appreciation for mid-aughts and 90’s RnB vocalists emerged. And at the tail end of the list is Lane 8, who has been on the rise since his early Soundcloud days thanks to his consistently moody-yet-catchy style of electronic.
Adding to the list I initially started two weeks ago, I pulled together six indie-disco and disco-house songs for your weekend listening. The offerings from Saint Pepsi and Duck Sauce are both from free albums (found here and here, respectively). Saint Pepsi’s is worth checking out solely for the Mario Kart samples at the beginning.
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