New Music Friday is intense. Hundreds of songs drop from artists around the world, and you’re supposed to somehow find the best ones. It’s fun work, but it’s time-consuming — so we at Billboard Dance want to give you a hand. Each week, we sift through the streams and dig in the digital crates to present the absolute must-hears from the wide breadth of jams.
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This week was heavy. First, we found out Ultra Music Festival’s flagship Miami event, its Abu Dhabi festival and Tomorrowland Winter were forced to postpone due to rising health concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. It sounds like the surrounding MMW parties throughout Miami are still green-lit, but we could all use some upbeat dance jams to get through the sad news.
Luckily, Nervo and Kandy teamed up on a fashionable tune called “Supermodel” to bring back the fierceness. Louis the Child got with Foster the People on “Every Color,” and Nick AM gave us a really cool video featuring footage of 1990s Iran in “Take It Back.”
That was only the beginning. Here are our other favorite tunes of the week.
David Guetta & Morten, “Detroit 3AM”
Last fall, David Guetta told Billboard Dance about a new sound he and his producing partner Morten were working on that would fuse mainstage EDM and the white hot underground oriented club scene. “I feel like with this new sound,” Guetta explained. “I’m filling this gap with something darker and techno and cool — but it still has amazing energy and is killing it at festivals when I play it.”
On Friday (March 6), evidence of this output exists in the form of “Detroit 3AM.” Named after the birthplace of techno and every dance fan’s hour of choice, the track is a propulsive, slick as chrome banger reminiscent of Swedish House Mafia’s all time classic, “Greyhound.” Whether it’s played a massive confetti-blasting mainstage, a tiny club space or simply through your headphones, the track’s chainsaw hook and freshly futuristic build once again position Guetta as an irrefutable titan of dance. — KATIE BAIN
Chet Porter, “Bummed” (feat. Alison Wonderland)
Just ’cause you’re smiling doesn’t mean you’re OK, and just because you’re “Bummed” doesn’t mean you can’t write an upbeat fuzz-dance hook. Chet Porter is on the brink of tears and musical brilliance on his latest, bridging the worlds of shoegaze and dance-pop into a fresh and heavily filtered jam that finds sweetness in honest despondency.
“My music-making process is super DIY,” Porter tells Billboard Dance, “so I think it’s mad cool that Alison wanted to be a part of it, especially since this more indie type of song is not what you’d usually expect from her. I wanted to add more electronic influence, so me and Quiet Bison ended up messing around over the bridge while he was at my house one night. The whole thing was written, produced, mixed and mastered in my room with friends.”
“Bummed” follows Porter’s equally awesome “Secrets” and “The Longest Day Ever,” signaling a new chapter in his bright career. It’s out now on Ultra Records. — KAT BEIN
Madeon, “All My Friends” (1788-L Remix)
With all caution not to overhype, you and all your friends aren’t ready for how totally awesome this remix is. Madeon’s original lead single was proof of his pop mastery. Here, 1788-L sinks sharp synth teeth into its melodic meat and pulls the song into the glitched-out, emotionally heavy filter house of the Frenchman’s sonic roots. It’s both deliciously romantic and majestically brutal, the kind of crunchy, layered, dramatic opulence you expect from Ed Banger heavyweights. I simply can not stop wondering at its twists and turns. By the time the producer drops into the quiet piano close, my heart has taken up residence in my throat and there may or may not be a tear in the corner of my eye. Let me know if it’s just me, but I don’t think it is. — K. Bein
Róisín Murphy, “Murphy’s Law”
Murphy’s Law states that whatever can go wrong, will, but Róisín Murphy’s latest song, named for the popular adage, is hitting all the right notes. At eight minutes long, the DJ Parrot-produced track is a smooth, slinky, smoky disco epic — the latest in a string of sequined singles over the last year — boasting bright, cosmic synths and a keyboard groove that winks at Donna Summer’s “Bad Girls.”
In this song, Murphy’s Law seems to entail not just running into your ex in your small town post breakup, but being weak enough in the moment to give it another try, thus undoing all the previous work of self-healing. “It’s the story of my life,” Murphy wrote in a statement. “It’s about the nature of the past, it’s often a difficult thing to outrun but it can also be quite comforting… When is it valuable heritage, and when is it something that’s holding you back?” — KRYSTAL RODRIGUEZ
Robotaki, “Now That We’ve Been in Love” (feat. Pell)
Toronto’s Robotaki has found himself quite a sweet sound on “Now That We’ve Been in Love.” Fans will recognize some of the sonic swagger of 2018’s “Butterscotch,” but where that cool cut played funky in autumn hues, this jazzy lil’ number bumps bright like flowering spring.
“When I started working on this track, I had the goal of creating a nostalgic feel but with a modern approach,” Robotaki tells Billboard Dance, “so I tracked all of the instrumental parts into a cassette machine and really focused on building a strong lo-fi-ish sample which would act as a backbone to the eventual track. I wanted this record to feel like thinking of a golden memory from your past when you put it on, and let that concept influence all of my decisions when producing this.”
NoLa rapper Pell immediately got the concept and ran with it, taking the producer’s “lovesick/intergalactic sweetheart” idea to a deeper place about the intensity of old flames. “In retrospect, these ideas aren’t too far removed,” Robotaki says. “Past love can sometimes feel like an intergalactic love, something so far removed from the now that it can send you elsewhere just by thinking about it. “
“Now That We’ve Been in Love” is the second single from Robotaki’s forthcoming album, The Grand Mirage, out on Odesza’s Foreign Family Collective later this month. — K. Bein
The Vision, “Mountains” (feat. Andreya Triana)
After gifting us with one of the biggest tracks in the house community last year with “Heaven,” The Vision is back with “Mountains,” a strong followup that serves as a dance-floor hymn for hard times. The duo of Ben Westbeech and KON have again linked up with singer Andreya Triana, whose vocals soar over somber piano keys and a deep bassline. She sounds spiritually pained, yet ultimately determined to persevere through life’s obstacles with the help of her higher power. “The world just keeps on spinning ‘round,” she sings, “‘cause oh, I still believe.” The way she repeats “I still believe” with increasing power and grit, it’s almost like she has to convince herself of it until it’s less an affirmation and more a spiritual battle cry. It rings so clear that we, too, begin to believe that we can move any mountain. — K.R.