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PinkPantheress has canceled all of her tour dates for the rest of 2024. The British pop star announced her plans to pull out of upcoming festivals and opening tour slots for Olivia Rodrigo and Coldplay on Thursday (Aug. 1).
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PinkPantheress made the news official in a personal statement posted to her Instagram Story, where she revealed that it was time to “focus” on her “physical health” as she’s “hit a wall.”
“It is with the heaviest heart that sadly have to announce that i will not be able to continue with the rest of my live shows this year in order to focus on my physical health and overall wellbeing,” she wrote. “It appears i have reached a wall which i am struggling to penetrate through. this will include my GUTS tour, Field Day, Summer Sonic, FORM, III Points, and Australia/NZ appearances.”
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The “Turn It Up” singer thanked her team and Olivia Rodrigo for giving her a chance to do what she loved on a nightly basis. “I would like to thank all of you, as well as my touring team and Olivia for giving me the platform to perform some super fun shows. I’m sad to disappoint anyone and can only hope we will be in each other’s company once i return to health,” she concluded.
Due to Personal Reasons:Pinkpantheress will no longer be able to finish the upcoming dates she has with Olivia Rodrigo for the “Guts World Tour” + Any of her upcoming tours/shows of the year.We’re sending hugs and kisses her way and hope everything is okay! pic.twitter.com/aMDBLrKVVj— Capable of Love Tour Updates 🕊️ (@COLTourUpdates) August 1, 2024
PinkPantheress had been opening for Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts World Tour since the second North American leg kicked off on July 19. Fans hoping to see her in San Francisco this weekend on the trek are out of luck.
The 23-year-old was slated to perform at III Points festival in Miami and on Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres World Tour running through Australia/New Zealand into November.
It’s been a very hectic year for PinkPantheress from a touring standpoint as she headlined her own Capable of Love Tour, which started in Europe before returning stateside to wrap up in April.
More recently, PinkPantheress performed at the MLS All-Star Concert in Columbus, Ohio, earlier in July, where she went viral for gifting a fan her Coach bag.
“I was lucky enough to perform in a location I’ve never done a show at, in Columbus, Ohio, so meeting some longtime fans was the best feeling ever,” PinkPantheress told Billboard of the heartwarming exchange. “One of them handed me a custom made Funko Pop so of course I had to give them my Coach bag in exchange for their hard work!”
The “Boys a Liar, Pt. 2” singer’s Heaven Knows debut album arrived in 2023 and went on to reach No. 61 in the U.S. on the Billboard 200.
Charli’s Angels, there’s no need to “Guess” anymore — Billie Eilish is officially joining Charli XCX‘s latest remix. On Thursday (Aug. 1), Charli took to Instagram to announce that Eilish would be making a special guest appearance on the remixed version of her song “Guess.” In the video clip, Charli calls up the “Lunch” singer […]
This fall, Charli XCX & Troye Sivan Present: Sweat will bring the British and Australian pop stars to arenas across the U.S. and Canada. It’s the first time that either of them will headline North American arenas, but following their respective recent releases and subsequent solo shows – let alone the growing force behind the fall shows’ sales – they need not sweat it.
The tour, which kicks off Sept. 14 in Detroit and went on sale in April, has already sold out more than 90% of its tickets, according to Brian Greenbaum, Sivan’s agent at CAA.
Greenbaum says the tour dates in Boston, Chicago, New York and San Francisco sold out immediately, while high demand pushed a second show in Los Angeles. He notes that tickets across the tour were 67% sold after the first weekend of availability, and 70% by the end of May.
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The Sweat announcement and on-sale were planted after Sivan’s latest album cycle (for the October 2023 release of Something to Give Each Other) had mainly run its course, but before Charli’s Brat rollout kicked into high gear (June 7 release date). That off-cycle and on-cycle rollout was by design, giving ample time to sell arena tickets by artists who were not historically arena acts.
But even with strong opening sales, the team behind Sweat knew they’d get “a second bite at the apple,” said Greenbaum. Since the on-sale, Sivan made his arena debut abroad, and Charli executed an entire album campaign. Rather than the typical drop-off, momentum has carried Sweat through the (Brat) summer, with Greenbaum noting that North American sales rose to 80% by mid-June and beyond 90% by the end of July.
Sivan’s third studio LP, Something to Give Each Other, earned him his first two Grammy nominations and became his first album to land multiple songs on the Billboard Hot 100.
That success set up the European leg of the Something to Give Each Other Tour, leveling him up to arenas in Europe on his own before coming Stateside with Charli. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, he played 15 shows across the continent in May and June, grossing $5.7 million from 108,000 tickets sold, averaging $379,000 and 7,227 tickets per show.
Those figures mark a 225% increase over Sivan’s last European jaunt. In Amsterdam, he went from selling 6,000 tickets at AFAS Live on The Bloom Tour in 2019, to 13,500 at the Ziggo Dome in June. In Berlin, he leapt from 3,333 tickets at Tempodrom to 8,884 tickets at Velodrom. In London, his audience ballooned from 5,133 tickets at Eventim Apollo to 11,254 at OVO Arena Wembley.
In the eight European markets where Sivan returned, attendance grew by no less than double, and earnings multiplied by at least three. Assuming similar growth in the U.S., where he played more shows and commanded bigger grosses on The Bloom Tour, he is well set up for arenas in North America, especially teamed up with a similarly buzzy pop star.
In June, Charli XCX played a string of club and festival dates in North and South America. In contrast to Sivan’s international arena tour, she chose to tease their fall tour with underplays that lived in the more intimate, visceral world of Brat. Her handful of headline shows sold out, ranging from 850 tickets in Sao Paulo to 5,000 in Los Angeles.
The numbers on Charli’s live shows were intentionally smaller than Sivan’s, but the energy and word-of-mouth around them matched the intensity of the album. Not only did it debut to career-peak commercial returns (No. 3 on the Billboard 200) and universal acclaim, it has penetrated the cultural consciousness. Amid a string of music videos, remixes and viral dance challenges, Brat has infiltrated the 2024 U.S. election cycle via a swirl of memes and momentum behind Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris (“kamala IS brat,” Charli virally tweeted last month).
It’s perfect timing, then, for Sivan and Charli to join forces on Sweat. In her own words, in Billboard’s July cover story, it finally made sense due to the dance-leaning nature of both of their albums – the first No. 1 for each of them on Top Dance/Electronic Albums. They’ve built toward arena status over their decade-plus careers, each building cult-pop success from one album to another.
Beginning her career with a smattering of hits with Iggy Azalea and Icona Pop and songwriting credits alongside Selena Gomez and Shawn Mendes, Charli continued to accrue acclaim for her solo projects, growing her base from 965 tickets per show on 2014’s Girl Power North America Tour, to 1,439 on 2019’s Charli Live Tour, and then to almost 4,000 tickets on 2022’s Crash the Live Tour. Sivan’s recent European leg grew his base two-to-one, while The Bloom Tour expanded his reach worldwide, with more than 60 shows on five continents.
With more than a month left before Sweat begins, sales are expected to creep closer toward a continental sell-out. Just this week, Brat track “360” jumped from No. 78 to No. 55 on the Hot 100, while “Apple” debuted, becoming the album’s third track to chart. A new remix looms, hinting at more gas in the tank in the remaining weeks before opening night.
Both Sivan and Charli will tour on their own again after Sweat wraps, with each artist playing hometown shows in Oceania and the U.K., respectively. By the end of the year, their combined ticket sales could approach 500,000 in 2024.
Charli XCX seems to be joining forces with another pop brat. The superstar revealed on Wednesday (July 31) that she has a remix of her Brat track “Guess” on the way, teasing her collaborator in a black-and-white photo posted to Instagram. “Guess?” she captioned the post, in which she’s seen posing in a white mini-skirt […]
Brat summer touched down in the Balearic Islands earlier this month when Charli XCX brought her Partygirl party night to Ibiza’s legendary club Amnesia for a very packed and very buzzy Boiler Room set on July 13. The artist of the summer launched the set with Brat‘s “365,” then blazed through the album — with […]
This week in dance music: Legendary dance vocalist Evelyn Thomas died at age 70; we trekked to Belgium for Tomorrowland and recapped its best moment and ten most played tracks; Anyma reported selling an incredible 100,000 tickets in less than 24 hours for his six sold out shows in Sphere in Las Vegas this December and Meduza shared the secrets of “Italian touch” for the latest cover of Billboard Italy.
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And we’ve got the goods, too. These are the best new dance tracks of the week.
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Gordo, Diamante
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Think of Diamante, the debut album from Gordo, as the companion piece to Drake’s Honestly Nevermind, with Gordo producing that 2022 album and Drake featuring on two tracks on this new project by his longtime friend. The connective tissue extends well beyond credits, as Diamante picks up and in many ways extends Honestly Nevermind‘s underground house terrain, with its 16 tracks embodying simmering, sophisticated and in many cases sensual dancefloor music that folds in elements of reggaeton, pop, indie, jazz and hip-hop, altogether sounding like any given afterhours in Miami, Tulum, Berlin or Ibiza. The album features not just the two Drake collabs, but a crew of other guests including Fuerza Regida, T-Pain, Maluma, Nicki Nicole, Feid, Leon Bridges, &ME and Rampa of Keinemusik and Young Dolph.
Gordo is of course the producer formerly known as Carnage, with the Nicaraguan-American artist born Diamanté Blackmon abandoning the Carnage project in 2022, telling us that it was making him “miserable.” With Diamante, out via Ultra Records, he’s clearly found and gotten comfortable in a new, more mature groove. Blackmon spent four years making the project, and dedicates it to his grandmother and his other nearest and dearest.
“I called in every favor I could for this body of work….,” he writes. “It’s really really beautiful….I have never been so nervous in my life… I guess that’s a good sign??? To be honest with you all… I thought about calling it quits after I dropped this album…i felt a bit lost when I finished it because i couldn’t fathom something better than this… everything I’ve dreamed of is right here in this project… all of my dreams collab came true…so many talented people helped with this project… I’m so grateful… this isn’t a gordo album… it’s a diamante album… from carnage to gordo… it’s been a wild ride… i hope I make you guys proud.” — KATIE BAIN
Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding, “Free”
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After nabbing a No. 1 hit in the U.K. last year with “Miracle,” Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding return with what could be its successful sequel, “Free.” The Scottish producer has been rinsing the new track in his recent DJ sets, including one earlier this week at Ibiza mega-club Ushuaïa, where Goulding popped in for a live performance. Like its predecessor, “Free” is high in energy and steeped in ‘90s-era sounds, but it leaves the trance route in favor of euphoric piano house with cascading breaks and waves of warm, glowing synths. Goulding’s vocals float above, her gossamer timbre naturally capturing the song’s vulnerable but hopeful lyrics: “Eyes closed, holding on/ Alone no more/ I’m free when I’m with you.” —KRYSTAL RODRIGUEZ
Sophie, “Berlin Nightmare”
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Ahead of Sophie’s final album release, two new tracks from the late Scottish producer have emerged: “One More Time” featuring Popstar and “Berlin Nightmare” featuring Evita Manji. “Berlin Nightmare” is delightfully dark and grimy, with multiple synth lines squelching and skipping across unrelenting percussion, culminating in a last-second speedup that yanks you out of their trance. It evokes images of hazy warehouse parties, where in the dim-lit space the dancefloor looks like a single mass of writhing limbs, and dried puddles of spilled drinks occasionally glue your shoes to the concrete. The two tracks follow lead single “Reason Why,” released last month. Sophie is due out on September 27. — K.R.
Hayla, “Freefall”
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As one of current electronic music’s most in-demand vocalists, Hayla has been omnipresent on the dance floor and on the charts, logging recent collaborations with Kx5, John Summit and Kygo. High-profile as they may be, the British singer/songwriter is fierce all on her own as shown on her latest solo single “Freefall.” It’s an atmospheric yet hard-hitting affair, with rumbling and swirling synths echoing the duality of Hayla’s love conundrum, and her drawn-out chorus pulls you into a state of weightlessness.
“I wrote this song in L.A. about a year and a half ago with Carl Ryden,” says Hayla. “The track was one that I always loved and when we were thinking about what to put on the album this track really stuck out as a stand alone single release. This song’s story happens after the love has gone – when the realization hits that no matter how hard you try to make something work you can’t. The chorus however asks the question of gravitational pull … maybe in another time it would bring you back together.” “Freefall” is Hayla’s final single release ahead of her debut album, which is slated for a November release. — K.R.
Mochakk feat. VTSS “Locomotiva Ibiza 2099”
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Brazilian phenom Mochakk (of “Jealous” fame) further proves he’s got the goods to stay in it for the long haul with his latest, “Locomotiva Ibiza 2099.” The title track from of the producer’s new three-song EP, the nearly seven-minute clubland opus takes its time warming up, then shifts into high gear with the sound of an actual locomotive and a cascade of acid-soaked synths that capture the heady, warm, happily weird vibes of going for it in the club at 5 a.m. on the song’s namesake island.
A collaboration with producer/vocalist Vtss (whose Boys Noize collab “Steady Pace” was a 2023 favorite), “Locomotiva Ibiza 2099” is out via Circo Loco Records and comes from the first installment of a two part EP, with the second installment coming in September. Both are out via CircoLoco Records, the label birthed from Ibiza’s DC10 where Mochakk is a current resident. He’ll play his own Mochakk Calling event in São Paulo this Saturday, July 27, along with upcoming festivals including Lollapalooza, Osheaga and Hard Summer. — K.B.
Boys Noize, “Fvkvrvnd”
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Ahead of Hard Summer next weekend, the festival’s namesake label is setting the tone for the event with this, the latest from German fav Boys Noize. Clocking in at a throttling, threatening 148 BPM, the track is all kickdrum and relentless buzzaw bassline, adding up to a happily hectic, cathartically tough song that sounds like it’s got your head in a vice in the best kind of way. Naturally, Boys Noize plays Hard Summer on the first day of the August 3-4 festival in Los Angeles. — K.B.
David Guetta & Oliver Heldens feat. Fast Boy, “Chills (Feel My Love)”
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This past week has yielded something of a stylistic whiplash for Oliver Heldens. Last Friday, the Dutch producer released the dark and absolutely drilling single “Baddadan Bad” under his Hi-Lo alias, and today he teams up with David Guetta and Fast Boy on “Chills (Feel My Love),” an uplifting summer anthem that invites hands-in-the-air festival moments. The powerful combination of skyward builds, stadium-sized synths and Fast Boy’s impassioned vocals must sound like how it feels when you experience a love so strong that your heart threatens to burst out of your chest.
“Earlier last year, I was looking for some uplifting vocals, and Fast Boy sent me a few vocal demos,” Heldens says. “One of them, ‘Chills,’ really stood out to me, and I was immediately drawn to its emotional and melancholic vibes, so I started working on it. In the summer of 2023, I tested an early demo at some of my shows but felt it wasn’t totally right, so I went into the studio and kept re-working, and during a session in Amsterdam during ADE where I actually met Fast Boy for the first time, we got it to a place where it sounded so big and fresh! The new version reminded us a lot of some of David Guetta’s older hits, like ‘When Love Takes Over,’ so we had to send it to him. He loved it and put his touch on it, and we all finished it up together!” — K.R.
Italian producer Anyma has today (July 23) announced selling out all six of his upcoming Sphere shows, for a total of 100,000 tickets sold. Tickets went on sale earlier today, with a pre-sale event happening yesterday. The first show of the run, on New Year’s Eve, was announced just last week, with five additional dates […]
Tomorrowland is currently in the eye of the storm, with the first weekend of the dance mega-festival in Boom, Belgium, wrapping up Sunday (July 23), and the second weekend kicking off again this Friday, July 26.
Betwixt events, festival organizers have released a list of the 10 most played tracks of weekend one, with the data compiled by the festival’s music monitoring team in conjunction with online DJ database 1001 Tracklists.
The unranked list is a mix of classic dance tracks and newer material, with music released in the past few weeks showing up alongside EDM classics by genre mainstays and even music from the turn of the millennium. Genre-wise, the list is across the board, featuring melodic techno, EDM, afrohouse and dance remixes of classic songs. Check the list below.
The first weekend of Tomorrowland 2024 drew 200,000 festivalgoers from around the world to a 9,000-acre festival site, where hundreds of DJs played across 16 stages. 2024 marks the show’s 20-year anniversary.
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Kaaze Feat. Alina Pozi, “Papi” (2024)
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Argy & Omnia, “Aria” (2023)
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Sebastian Ingrosso & Tommy Trash Feat. John Martin, “Reload” (2012)
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Swedish House Mafia Feat. John Martin, “Don’t You Worry Child” (2012)
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Marlon Hoffstadt aka DJ Daddy Trance, “It’s That Time” (2023)
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Gotye Feat. Kimbra, “Somebody That I Used To Know (Sidepiece Edit)” (2024)
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Adam Port & Stryv Feat. Malachiii, “Move” (2024)
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Chase & Status & Bou, Feat. Trigga, IRAH, Flowdan & Takura, “Baddadan” (2023)
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Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike & Tiesto & W&W Ft Dido, “Thank You (Not So Bad)” (2024)
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Tomcraft, “Loneliness” (2002)
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This past weekend, Tomorrowland 2024 kicked off its 20th anniversary in arguably one of its most epic opening weekends yet. Over its three days, the dance festival in Boom, Belgium welcomed roughly 400,000 festival goers, who came from around the world and arrived decked out in eye-catching and photo-worthy costumes and summer attire. With temperatures soaring over the weekend, these types of outfits were essential.
July 19-21 marked the first weekend of Tomorrowland 2024, along with some of the hottest temperatures the festival has experienced, with the daily heat climbing up to 90 degrees, compared to the average 70-degree temps. Hot weather couldn’t stop the party, though, as DJs brought their A-game with playlists filled with crowd-rousing beat drops, enthusiastic calls for attendees to put their hands in the air and an overall sense of community.
Tomorrowland’s stages have always been feats of technology and whimsy, and 2024 was no exception. The festival’s 20th birthday wasn’t just a milestone moment for the event itself, but a celebration of life — which was also revealed to be the theme for this year, with multiple elements of the event taking inspiration from this idea.
With the site clocking it at roughly 9,000 acres, walking from stage to stage is a full-on experience where one encounters art, fellow attendees, performers and delicious food booths ready to fuel you up for the next dance session. Of course, the who’s who of the electronic music world were on site for the event, with hundreds of DJs including Swedish House Mafia, Tale of Us, Alesso, Amelie Lens, Bonobo, Dom Dolla, The Blessed Madonna, REZZ and Deadmau5 performing as REZZMAU5, David Guetta, Solomun b2b Four Tet, Eliza Rose and many others all playing over the weekend.
From mesmerizing stages to surprise guest appearances — and ahead of the second weekend of the festival starting this Friday, July 26 — below are all the moments from Tomorrowland 2024 we won’t be forgetting any time soon.
Unveiling the Main Stage
Image Credit: Courtesy of Tomorrowland
This week in dance music: Anyma was announced as the first electronic artist to play Sphere in Las Vegas, with two additional shows quickly being added to the originally announced New Years Eve Date. Will Ferrell announced that Swedish House Mafia will be playing his big charity show in Chicago this fall, Charli XCX told us about her brat summer strategy in our latest cover story, we went inside the Saudi Arabian dance-focused festival Soundstorm and dropped exclusive sets from Lightning In a Bottle 2024.
You wanted more? Baby, we’ve got more. These are the best new dance tracks of the week.
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Snakehips x Earthgang, “Glimmer”
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U.K. production outfit Snakehips links with Atlanta hip-hop duo Earthgang for a project that could of course only be called Snakegang. The fearsome foursome come hot out the gate with “Glimmer,” which mind melts house music as bubbly as freshly poured champagne with breezy verses for a finished product that’s just plain summertime fun. The track comes from the just out Snakegang EP Vol. 1, a five track collection with a name that we hope means that more volumes are en route. Hear it on the floor during Snakehips’ U.S. club tour, which extends through late September.
Deadmau5, some ep
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The one and only Deadmau5 has dug into his archives for the new four-track some ep, which features three new Deadmau5 tracks and a fourth from his techno project Testpilot. Like the lead track “Quetzacotl” which came out last week, “Sever” is quintessential Deadmau5, with pulsing, cinematic synths giving way to territory that’s darker but, as ever, produced so cleanly that it seems to glow. “Sever” comes with a video of the song’s live show visualizer, with Deadmau5 himself currently building a new studio, wherein he will soon get to work on a new full-length. In the meantime, he’s got a stacked summer and fall schedule that includes performing with Rezz as Rezzmau5 at Tomorrowland this weekend and his own Day of the Deadmau5 shows in October in Chicago, Washington D.C., Mexico City and Puerto Rico.
Hugel, Topic & Arash 7 Daecolm, “I Adore You”
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If the phrase “simmering lust” had a soundtrack, it’d be this one from French producer Hugel, German/Croation producer Topic, Swedish artist Arash and Zimbabwe-born, London-raised singer Daecolm. Together, the guys fuse Latin and Afro-house rhythms for a track, out via Astralwerks, that’s subtle, sophisticated, radiating romance and perhaps most crucially, currently blowing up on TikTok and other social platforms.
Gorgon City, “Are You Feeling It Too?”
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Two of the most consistent guys in the game, Gorgon City today drop their club-focused summer album Reverie. The track opens with “Are You Feeling It Too,” a query which in this moment in time could refer to the creeping feeling of societal dystopia but which in this case seems to just mean the chemistry between two humans who are very into each other. In any case, the juxtaposition of the dreamy/stoney vocals and shifts into tougher, darker, higher-BPM material that, just like so much of the GC catalog, works very well.
Overmono, “Gem Lingo (ovr now)”
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This one from the Welsh duo was debuted during a Lot Radio set alongside Fred again.. and Lil Yachty this past February, quickly becoming an in-demand ID. Officially out today via XL Recordings, it’s clear why — with the shuffling garage beat serving as a foundation for clouds of synth and vocals from Jai Paul’s Paul Institute-affiliated singer/songwriter Ruthven, whose presence gives the whole thing a plaintive, soulful and deeply human quality.
Sofi Tukker, “Hey Homie”
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Coming from Sofi Tukker’s forthcoming album, Bread, “Hey Homie” is lyrically about romantic love, although the video for the gentle, Brazilian-influenced track gives it a platonic twist, with the clip built of home-movie style clips of the duo’s Sofi Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern traveling the world, making music, performing and generally being, well, homies. A sweet as hell recommended watch.
Praxis feat. Kathy Brown, “Turn Me Out (Extended Dance Remix)”
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Kathy Brown is the legendary singer whose voice has graced dance classics including Eminence’s “Give It Up” and Soul Central’s “Strings of Life”, with a new collection celebrating her truly dazzling catalog — and also functioning as a fundraiser to help Brown pay for her current stage four cancer treatments. Out via Glitterbox, which will direct all profits towards Brown’s healthcare fund, Legacy brings together some of her classics, along with new edits — including an undeniable take on “Turn Me Out,” a 1997 Dance Club Songs No. 1.
“None of us can live forever, but some are fortunate enough to create a body of work that will endure long after we are no longer physically present on this Earth,” Brown says in a statement. “I always put the entirety of my soul into every single performance and recording, and that is what the world will hear when they listen, play, and dance to this album. That will be my legacy.”