For Club Use Only is your one-stop guide to the best underground dance music from across the world. Each month, The Astral Plane’s Gabe Meier forecasts the next wave of sounds due to break through into the mainstream.
The past month has offered a bounty for of experimental dance music-heads. Fans of highly conceptual music were surely gratified by brilliantly devised albums from Amnesia Scanner and rkss, while those desiring dancefloor efficiency will have looked towards DJ Lag’s latest for Goon Club Allstars and Bamba Pana’s Poaa LP. Meanwhile, Sharp Veins dropped a 30 song pack and Scratcha DVA released the Interludes LP and the complementary Interlude FM for those looking to dive into sprawling, enigmatic projects.
LINNÉA
‘Castle Bound’
Berlin’s LINNÉA, a resident at the city’s TRADE parties, is the latest artist featured in UNITI’s THE MXNIFESTO single series. Here, the producer’s dembow lurch takes on a marching band quality, driving a symphony of lush synth work into ever more dramatic territory.
Kush Jones
‘Gucci Bass’
Juke Bounce Werk’s Kush Jones explores new dynamics on his latest Strictly 4 My CDJZ 2 EP for the Los Angeles outfit. Drawing on tracky techno as much as the footwork/juke sounds he’s excelled at in recent years, ‘Gucci Bass’ is the star of the pack, forging a bridge between sounds that are both rooted in the Midwest but have drifted apart culturally in recent years.
Yazz Ahmed
‘Al Emadi (Black$ea Não Maya remix)’
Black$ea Não Maya, the trio comprised of DJ Kolt, DJ Perigoso and DJ Noronha, have always been one of Príncipe’s most crowd-pleasing acts, often taking a flat track — relatively, compared to their labelmates — to dancefloor dominance. Their take on Yazz Ahmed’s ‘Al Emadi’ is no different, adding jaunty horns and dub-y sub bass to an already winning rhythmic framework.
OLY
‘ONI BOKUSŌ (ft. PERRO SUCIO)’
OLY’s latest track, placed on a <//-(HYPERSONICS)-//> compilation, features a brilliant mixture of pent up frustration and decaying rave elements. It nods at dancefloor functionality but coyly strays away at the last second.
MOONOVERSUN
‘GIRLS/BOYS (Jennifer Walton Remix)’
There are a many artists aiming to emulate the Charli XCX/SOPHIE/PC Music axis these days, but most fall embarrassingly flat. London’s Jennifer Walton is not one of those artists, often creating tunes that fall in an uncanny valley between algorave and pop without losing a beat.
Osheyack
‘Parataxon (VIP 135 Mix)’
Shanghai’s SVBKVLT label has been on a tear, introducing Hyph11e’s debut Vanishing Cinema EP last year and bringing us standout releases from Prettybwoy, Schism and Saliva-D so far this year. Osheyack is one of the label’s standout artists and his latest, a slowed down version of ‘Parataxon’ (from May’s Empty Hell EP), exemplifies the rambunctious hardcore energy that runs through so much of the label’s catalog.
Sim Hutchins
‘Dumped by Pirate Radio (object blue Remix)’
Each remix on Sim Hutchins’ C18230.5 (LOFT and Renick Bell provide the other two) is worth meditating over, but it’s object blue’s spaced out 160 effort that gets the nod, if nothing else for its sickly, pulled apart vocal manipulations.
ZillaKami X SosMula
‘NITRO CELL (LIL LIVE EDIT)’
New York’s Litefeet sound has proven to be an exceptional vessel for allowing blustery hip-hop to work in a more crowd pleasing dancefloor context. LIL LIVE does exactly that on his edit of ZillaKami X SosMula’s ‘NITRO CELL’, chipmunking the vocals (as much as the original’s frayed vocals can be) and throwing the already bass blasted low end into overdrive.
DJGM & Xzavier Stone
‘4WD, O carro da biqueira’
Brazil’s Marginal Men have been smashing up baile funk with Europe and the United States’ club exports for years, offering a pleasing counterpoint to the many European and American producers using the same baile funk sample pack in every single one of their tracks. The duo’s most recent cut takes on the DJGM-produced ‘O carro da biqueira’ (from MC Neguinho ITR’s ‘Alô bando de noias’) and splices it with Xzavier Stone’s ‘4WD’ from the Swiss producer’s recent THIRST LP.
Orj
‘Myth’
Orj’s Soundcloud describes its contents as “deterritorialized bubbling and club tools” and the stripped back, pedal-to-the-floor tracks that follow do not disappoint. It’s no surprise that Orj is based in Rotterdam as ‘Myth’ revs up to 150 BPM, embracing the hardcore energy that makes so much bubbling music a riot on the dancefloor.
Gabe Meier runs The Astral Plane. Find him on Twitter.
Read next: Deep Inside: September 2018’s must-hear house and techno playlist
