Friday Dance Music Guide: The Week’s Best New Tracks From Kaleena Zanders, Confidence Man, Mau P & More
Written by djfrosty on October 18, 2024
This week in dance music: Fred again.. spoke with Nardwuar, and Rüfüs du Sol spoke with us. Charli XCX continued her winning streak by releasing a remix with Kesha and seeing Brat reach the apex of the U.K. album charts after last week’s release of Brat and It’s Completely Different But Also Still Brat. The managing director of the Amsterdam Dance Event ran down his top event picks for the conference happening this week in the Dutch capital, SoundCloud announced that electronic music fans are the platform’s most engaged, organizers of Breakaway Music Festival said the touring dance festival is expanding to six new markets next year, we ran down the 40 most played tracks at Pacha Ibiza this season and also debuted exclusive CRSSD fall 2024 sets from Idris Elba, Tinlicker, Confidence Man and Kerala Dust.
And in the realm of marquee album releases, Kelly Lee Owens dropped her fourth studio LP Dreamstate, The Blessed Madonna put her out her major label debut Godspeed and LP Giobbi delivered her shimmering second album, Dotr.
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To all that, we add even more. These are the best new dance tracks of the week.
Kaleena Zanders, Glorified
After releasing the EP’s other three songs over the last few months, Kaleena Zanders rounds out the project with the release of its title track, “Glorified.” A bright blend of disco and soul, the song — like much of Zanders’ work — features her power-lunged vocals as the sonic and spiritual centerpiece. The corresponding video also manages to be simultaneously sexy and adorable. The artist is on tour with DJ Susan through the end of the year, with upcoming shows in Austin, Brookly and Denver. Glorified is out via Helix Records.
Confidence Man, 3am (La La La)
The prevailing response to the Australian act’s third album has thus far been a general adoration for and excitement about the way its dozen tracks capture the bright sound and breezy spirit of the ’90s rave world. Indeed there’s a lot of candy raving warehouse vibes — a sonic and fashion aesthetic that’s been very on trend in the current dance scene and which Conidence Man does with moxie across the project. But things get particularly interesting on “Sicko,” which take a sharp turn from the Deee-Lite references and swerves into darker, druggier, more sexed-up influences of Depeche Mode and INXS, with the group’s Aidan Moore) eventually admitting “I”m such a sicko” as the song again shifts gears into ambient, after-hours territory. 3am (La La La) is out on Casablanca Records.
Mau P, “Merther”
The Dutch producer samples Ini Kamoze’s essential 1984 single “World a Reggae (Out in the Street They Call It Murder)”, and effectively whips it into a tech house song, chopping up Kamoze’s vocals into a stuttering beat and going fully on the nose by adding a few siren sounds. It works so well that Solomun and Michael Bibi have been rinsing it in their sets lately.
Mau P says that after testing the track out on the road for a long time, “it’s sick that I get to put this out with the legendary sample from Ini Kamoze’s ‘World A Music.’ I didn’t think this would be remotely possible a few years ago, but here we are. My fans have also been asking for this one nonstop, so I’m happy they don’t have to keep listening to ripped versions online and can finally get the full finished version.” The track marks Mau P’s first release on Defected Records.
Sebastian Ingrosso, “Flood”
Of Swedish House Mafia’s three members, Sebastian Ingrosso puts out the least solo work, so anything new from him will naturally pique curiosity. His just-out single “Flood” delivers, with the 4:32-long track — a luxuriously long song in the world of two-minute tracks made for TikTok — unfolding across three movements, building from slinky IDM to an theatrically leaning vocal isolation into a peaktime heater. “It’s been a very long time since I worked on something of my own that represents who I have become since then,” Ingrosso wrote on social media. “I am on a journey of traveling inwards, and this is one of the many stories I hope to tell.”
Polo & Pan, “Nenuphar”
Polo & Pan’s output has always conjured a mood of lounging poolside in a silk robe in St. Tropez with a cocktail in your hand and not a care in the world. And so it goes on the French duo’s latest, “Nenuphar.” The track was recorded in Mexico City, with accompaniment by the Mexico-based all-female multi-genre collective I.M YONI (Independent Musicians of Yoni, who add a silky vocals over the layers of percussion and strings. “Nenuphar” is out on Hamburger Records.
Honey Dijon, “Finding My Way”
Honey Dijon and Ben Westbeech come together for the new “Finding My Way,” which comes from the latest edition of !K7’s enduring DJ Kicks series. Melding gospel vocals about searching for peace with a slowly unrolling house production (and a flute solo) the track has all the warmth and cool that have made Honey a global star for ages. “I’m a huge fan of research,” she says of her DJ Kicks compilation, “So putting this compilation together was basically going into my dancefloor experience and finding gems I wanted to present to people that they may not have been familiar with or that they didn’t even know existed.”