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I feel like this is the third year in a row that I want to start this piece with some sort of caveat about how I listened to a ton of dance music this year, and I’m starting to feel a bit repetitive. But even my friends like WillForThrill agree, my consumption of dance music was even more insane than usual this year. I significantly fell off my some of my listening in non-dance genres (I still have not heard the boygenius album lmao), partly because I stopped aspiring to be a “journalist” in the same capacity and thus have felt way less inclined to “keep up” with certain notable releases in other lanes. Of course, I’m still me, and that time I freed up not listening to every album Pitchfork reviews has only made my dance music listening more psychotic.
It wouldn’t be hard for me to make a list 100 deep of EPs, Compilations, etc.—and truth be told I thought about doubling up and doing a full 10 of both EPs AND LPs, but immediately realized I didn’t want to bite off more than I can chew. So as a result—after I get through a bajillion honorable mentions and releases I’ve decided to leave out for one reason or another—the written list is a mix of EPs and LPs from the year that were the absolute favorites and most central for my listening and DJing.
Now, let’s get into the music:
HONORABLE MENTIONS: You’ve Already Heard About These
A few of the last cuts I made here are releases that I feel like got more than enough shine on other year-end lists and publications already. Yes, “Set the Roof” rules, but let’s mix it up a little more and give some other releases love (also, I am not writing about Two Shell for the third year in a row).
Nikki Nair and Hudson Mohawke – SET THE ROOF EP
HONORABLE MENTIONS: Archival
There were a couple of archival / re-release records from this year that are so good it almost feels like cheating to list them against these actual 2023 releases. Not in the final 10, but seek these out ASAP:
DJ Rashad – DOUBLE CUP (DELUXE)
And then there are the releases that just barely missed the cut (in a less stacked year or if I had more time to do this, all of these could have been included. You could swap these with my real 10 and I’d be able to defend them just as strongly).
NEXT 10 EPS OUT
Sage Introspekt – TEMPTATION EP
DJ Swisha and Kush Jones – (RESPECTFULLY))
NEXT 10 LPS OUT
Black Rave Culture – BRC VOL. 3
Russell Ellington Langston Butler – CALL ME G
Simo Cell – CUSPIDE DES SIRÈNS
And here are the rest of the releases I enjoyed enough to list (yes I know, this is excessive):
EPs:
Avi Loud – THE LOUD PACK VOL. 1 / VOL. 2. / VOL. 3
DJ Sosa RD – ISLAND BOY WITH INTERNET
Downhill2k01 – AQUA VITÆ 🜉
Funk Assault – MINIMUM ONE POST A WEEK
Henzo – A FASCINATING SKELETON
Nikki Nair and Sam Binga – THE BRISLANTA EP
Oak Ciry Slums – TOOL TIME VOL. 1
Rachiid Paralyzing – MEGA TEMPO Pt. 1 / Pt. 2
S. Dot / Kade Young / SlickgoHam / Kalvo music – AURORA EP
Toma Kami – SPEED ODDITY Vol II / Vol III
Tim Reaper and Dwarde – GLOBEX CORP BLACK LABEL
WTCHCRFT – SLEEPLESS IN BROOKLYN
LPs:
Chrizpy Chris – THE LOST AND THE UNFOUND
DJ Fucci + Benfika – LOS VIENTOS DE SANTA ANA
DJ Grimerz – YENNESEY / THIS ALBUM COSTS 8 BILLION YEN / IN THE NEWS / TERMINAL GAMBLING ADDICTION
DJ Swisha – ASSORTED FLAVORS VOL. 3
VA Compilations:
BDB PRESENTS THE BLUE TAPE VOLUME 1 PART 1 / PART 2
BDB PRESENTS THE BLUE TAPE VOLUME 2: 20K PACK
Edit Packs:
La Dame – NOSTALGIC CLUB EDITS (2000-2010)
WORST LATIN CLUB EDITS VOL. 1 (and VOL. 2)
Bok Bok – BOK’S HARDBODY DUBS VOL. 2 (and VOL. 3)
KOOXLA – CLUB DEPOT III / CLUB DEPOT IV
Yazzus – IT’S YA GIRL’S BOOTLEGS III
DNGDNGDNG – BAMBA PACK VOL. II
Dagga x Manao – DXM POOL EDITS VOL. 1
Alright, now FINALLY lets get to the actual 10*
*with one last little bit of cheating right off the bat
OSSX – MAKE NICE / NO SLEEP / WHO HAS THE TIME / AIR CONTROL
Genre: East Coast Club
Favorite Track: “OVER YOURSELF”
No, I’m not doing it.
I refuse.
You cannot make me pick one of the four OSSX EPs as my favorite. Every single one of them has tracks I couldn’t imagine living without: losing NO SLEEP would mean losing the genius flip of Fatima Yamaha’s classic tune “What’s A Girl To Do,” getting rid of AIR CONTROL would deprive me of drum tracks like “BELLY UP” (which the legend DJ Petey immediately mashed up with “Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd” to make my favorite edit of the year). When other producers reach for an over-sampled track like “DARE,” you roll your eyes at the obviousness, when OSSX do it, you retire every other Gorillaz-sampling dance track in your library out of obsolescence. One of my favorite tracks of 2022 was Hudson Mohawke’s Faith Evans-sampling epic “Lonely Days,” and the OSSX track “OVER YOURSELF” takes the same material in the exact opposite direction to make one of my favorites of 2023, turning deep RnB heartbreak into something you can’t help but dance away.
Pound for pound, the trio of DJ Elise, Lektor Scopes, and Equiss—known together as OSSX—represent the very best that East Coast club music has to offer. Any time I meet another DJ who regularly plays OSSX tracks (in nearly every set if you’re me), it still feels like we’re exchanging a secret handshake, even as the group’s music becomes ubiquitous to the point of appearing in the background of Taylor Swift red carpet shots. If you like bouncy, breaky, Jersey and Baltimore Club, I can guarantee you won’t find any group with a better 2023 output. Their music is sleeker and punchier than old school East Coast club music, and often runs a little faster tempo-wise, but these tracks feel as classic and unfussy as the earliest DJ Technics staples—stuff that takes it all the way back to the roots of American club music at the intersection of hip hop and funk breakbeats. I don’t even have time to highlight tracks like “SYSTEM LOVE,” “C240,” “WHO HAS THE TIME,” and the not one, but two, excellent versions of “MAKE NICE,” all of which would have been *the* track on nearly any other release this year.
Plain and simple: this is 2023 club music at its purest and most expressive form. Their sound is a perfectly constructed, bouncy breaks-delivery mechanism, an unbeatable formula that never feels formulaic. Yes, their tracks are only on Bandcamp, yes they’re more expensive than average. Trust me—the OSSX difference is worth it.
Eev Frances – EEV PENITURES
Genre: Trance, Glitch, House
Favorite Track: “Black Ice”
One of the cool things about being someone that never shuts up about the music they like is that sometimes those musicians see you talking about their music on the Internet, and then you get to be friends with them! I have become a huge huge fan / loyal supporter of Eev Frances this year (she has thanked me for being her “biggest shooter”), but if you won’t take my repeated endorsement, take a look at the who’s who of other people who are tapped in like DJ Swisha, quinn, Feeble Little Horse, and Two Shell.
I really loved the first Eev Frances record of 2023, CHAMBER MUSIC, which blended ambient experimentation with a smattering of club drums to great results (“No Film” SOTY). But the follow-up release, EEV PENITURES, dives headfirst into some of the most exciting dance music I heard all year. Expectations get set right away with “Ribs,” one of two turbo-speed jersey club/trance hybrid tracks along with the equally inspired “Shock Collar.” But it’s the dreamy 140-145 BPM four-on-the-floor grooves that keep me coming back to this release on repeat listens: the late-night pulse of “Black Ice” and its sister track “Burner v2,” as well as the delightfully smooth-brained “4F.” These tracks all work well on their own or as part of the album’s flow, but where they really shine are in the blend—just throw something like the Yazzus remix of Britney Spears “BREATHE ON ME BUT SEXIER” over the top of “Black Ice” and immediately you’ll start cooking with gas.
There are a few notable pop samples sprinkled throughout EEV PENITURES that eagle-eared listeners may notice, but they only appear for brief flickers; a ghost in the machine aimed to give you an idea of the sensibilities kicking around in the subconscious of this music. I refuse to use the word “hyperpop” in earnest, but you get the gist.
Bendy – BENDY EP
Genre: Bass, Techno, House
Favorite Track: “Yuko”
If you’re a house head who likes a little UKG swing in your step, or if you’re a garage junkie who likes tracks with a sleek house twist, boy do I have the Goldilocks “just right” solution for you. The Toronto musician Yohei debuted his new Bendy alias with two releases this year, and while the Bendy LP THE OTHER SIDE is great, the eponymous BENDY EP is a real show-stopper. Starting out with some AceMo-type synth stabs and house grooves on “myStar,” the EP gets progressively funkier from there until it reaches the techno stutter of “Flicker,” never repeating itself once while staying in a really consistent headspace. None of these tracks are misses, but the one-two punch in the middle of “Yuko” into “Midnight Steppin” hits me exactly in my sweet spot with an ideal blend of garage shuffle and swingy, melodic house. The phrase “tech house” has been ruined by a sea of producers trying to be the next Fisher (worst DJ set I’ve ever had the misfortune of seeing in person), but the genre that I’m now forced to call “tech house, but not like that” is one that I really enjoy—it just requires a lot of finesse (and taste). Luckily for us, Bendy has both of those in spades. I have joked about the cliche of “no-nonsense” club music in the past, but if any release this year is deserving of that tag, it’s the BENDY EP.
Jialing / BIG J – CLUB FOOLS VOL. 3
Genre: Baltimore Club
Favorite Track: “BOUNCE IT”
When I think of Baltimore Club in 2023, one of the first names I think of is my queen Jialing aka Big J, the multi-hyphenate producer and DJ who also plays cello as part of a live duo with producer Bent Mode. Along with Kade Young (who I highlighted on last year’s list and had another great year in 2023), her music exemplifies the bouncy, breaky, hip hop-oriented groove that defines the Baltimore sound. Much like Bored Lord on the West Coast or OSSX to the north, you’ve probably initially encountered Big J through her excellent forays into the world of pop edits, but Baltimore Club has always been a sample-driven, referential style of club music, and her edit pack CLUB FOOLS VOL. 3 is a perfect example of how this approach can result in more than cheap nostalgia or novelty. This release may have a clownish title, but these tracks are no joke—each one of them takes material as recognizable as Rihana’s “Rude Boy” and twists them until they become fully recontextualized as a supporting player on the track. By far the most inspired flip is “BOUNCE IT,” an edit that dares to ask the question, “What if you could throw ass to Chris Isaak’s ‘Wicked Games’?” The answer may surprise you.
DJ Swisha – CRAZY IF TRUE
Genre: Jersey Club, Footwork
Favorite Track: “Lemme Hear Ya”
Look, there’s no way for me to write or talk about DJ Swisha without sounding like an unabashed stan, because I am one. As a DJ, he is the blueprint; as a producer, his tracks are so central to my “bangers” playlists in Serato that I have to limit the number of Swisha tracks I play in a set so that they don’t become a crutch. With his 2023 output alone, you could play a damn good set with nothing but DJ Swisha tracks. At the start of the year I would be sure that my selection would be his excellent collab EP with Kush Jones (RESPECTFULLY), but then CRAZY IF TRUE came along and mischievously pogo-sticked its way into my heart (and my USB). These tracks bounce and move with ruthless dancefloor efficiency, and on top of all of that he’s also one of the best mastering engineers in the game, able to give it that extra oomph and crispness (that also shines on the Dance Maniacs LP and the output of OSSX). “Shai’s Loop” is downright hypnotic, with or without the titular vocal loop, “Lemme Hear Ya” is New Orleans Bounce-meets-Baltimore Club perfection, and “CLUB MEGAMIXXX” (itself, a clever re-work of AceMo and Moma Ready’s “Where They At???” and a whole bunch of other samples) was the club banger of the year—so undeniable that even Four Tet had to nod his head in approval. CRAZY IF TRUE raises the bar of the already gold standard DJ Swisha had set with his previous releases. Underestimate him at your own peril.
DJ Fucci – ONDA DE CALOR
Genre: Latin Bass, House
Favorite Track: “Húmeda”
One of the best parts of my 2023 in dance music has been digging way deeper into the insane hotbed of talent coming out of Mexico. Especially on labels like Mexico City’s N.A.A.F.I, producers like Loe, Nico, and DJ Fucci are drawing international eyes to the dark and exhilarating dance music styles the region has to offer. DJ Fucci has a few good releases from this year, including an EP on N.A.A.F.I., some one-off tracks, and a full-length collab LP with Benfika, but my personal favorite is ONDA DE CALOR—an EP that infuses steamy, nocturnal club music with a touch of dreamy deep house and menacing acid. There’s a bit of something for everyone here: softer tracks like “Bootie Yaba Doobie” sound like Larry Heard taking a stab at Latin house, while heftier tracks like “Melon” bring some seriously nasty low end while still having that same light playfulness in the vocals and synth leads. “Húmeda” is the real highlight; with a pulsating house beat and hypnotic vocals, it plays like a sibling to one of my all time favorite tracks, John Tejada’s “Sweat On The Walls.” I don’t know how he did it, but the whole EP and “Húmeda” in particular so viscerally conjures a sweaty, low-ceiling club environment that I can practically smell it.
DJ Girl – HELLWORLD
Genre: Techno, Footwork, Electro
Favorite Track: “So Hot”
Some dance albums start with a slow, gentle ramp-up track to set an atmosphere, maybe even a whole ambient track so you can gently dip your toes into the pool. DJ Girl’s HELLWORLD does no such thing on its opening track “Get Down,” only giving you a brief warning of “Ready or not!” before launching into an electro-footwork cacophony that feels like the video of a Fourth of July fireworks show where they accidentally launched the entire show all at once. For a brief moment, you worry that going this explosive on the intro might lead to a downward slope to the album’s entertainment value as a whole, but the best thing about this album is the way it manages to live up to the bar it sets for itself. HELLWORLD is certainly an appropriate title for an album that prompts you to mimic the “ooooh so hot” sample of its lead single on every track.
Songs like “Technician” and “So Hot” are classic electro through and through (DJ Girl is based in Texas but has obvious Detroit roots), but on this album she is constantly repurposing the sounds of prior Planet Mu releases and pushing them to exhilarating new places, like the overblown techno bass on “Groover” that bridges the gap between Neil Landstrumm and DJ Rashad. The two features from Malick McFly are incredible, hitting Father-esqe flows over a bassline that sounds like a growling animal on “Opp Pack Hitting” and going even harder on “Gallery”—a song about, well, being high as fuck at the gallery. What makes the later track incredible is the way DJ Girl jumps between different techno, electro, and footwork drum patterns with reckless abandon as Mcfly tries to stay on the constantly changing beat like someone trying to balance on a spinning log, occasionally turning his vocals into a looped sample or pitching them up as the song continues to mutate until the very end.
Like her Eat Dis label mates Nondi_ and Twofold, DJ Girl represents the exciting new offshoots of styles like footwork, electro, and juke popping up 10 years on from DJ Rashad’s tragic early death, and it’s been heartening to see a flourishing of distinctly American dance music styles in an era defined by a lot of UK fetishism (that I’m totally guilty of participating in). American dance music is alive and well; you just need to know the right cool queer people to put you on.
Doctor Jeep – MACHINE LEARNING
Genre: UK Bass, Dancehall
Favorite Track: “Shake The Club”
As you probably can tell by my list, my listening and DJing preferences leaned pretty high-energy overall in 2023. But the Doctor Jeep EP MACHINE LEARNING wins my award for most metric tons of bass pushed in a competitive year. The NYC producer with Brazilian roots is known worldwide for his breakneck DJ sets and his ability to jump between genres and styles of bass music with ease; his big tune of the summer, “Push The Body,” became a huge hit on festival circuits for its vocoder vocals and clever halftime-electro-to-four-on-the-floor switchup, and this new EP builds on this omnivorous approach while also using the set dressing of classic electro (complete with old school text to speech vocals ala Volsoc’s “Shout Out”) as a running theme throughout.
There’s a bit of something here for anyone who likes heavy, high-impact dance music: the opening title track “Machine Learning” splits the difference between baile funk and nasty electro, “Mad T” deploys triplet kick patterns and looped vocals like machine gun fire, “Largatica” delivers some rude, acid-laced hardgroove techno, and “Phase Morph” and “Oil Drum” mix things up with some more lumbering, half-time rhythms and heady bass. But the true gem of this collection is “Shake the Club,” a 142 BPM stomper whose hook is annoyingly catchy. This is a track I was pining for even before I learned it was a Doctor Jeep ID—I had it stuck in my head from hearing it in other DJs’ sets before I could even listen to it on its own—and it totally lived up to the massive hype I created for myself. No other way to put it besides: “this shit knocks.”
Bored Lord – NAME IT!
Genre: House, Jungle
Favorite Track: “Luv”
I already put my stan credentials on the table for DJ Swisha and OSSX, and Bored Lord is much the same. Together, Swisha and Bored Lord represent the two sides of my north star inspirations as a DJ and producer: everything I want dance music to be at this point in my journey is represented in their work. That being said, Bored Lord’s new album NAME IT! already means much more to me than simply a template of dance music styles to aspire to or tracks I can’t wait to play in the club—this is heart and soul music, and it announces itself as such right away.
This is Bored Lord’s first LP released on Eris Drew and Octa Octa’s T4T Luv NRG label (which had a GREAT year with releases from Introspekt, Russel E.L. Butler, and Octa Octa herself that would all be just as worthy of a spot on this list), and NAME IT! feels like a major statement, uniting all of the sounds that she’s dabbled in across the bass music spectrum under one roof as she draws from from the entire UK hardcore continuum as well as US rave music like Florida breaks and Baltimore Club. [Brief aside, PLEASE read the Chal Ravens profile on Bored Lord because when my favorite writer interviews my favorite DJ we simply have to stan.]
Sometimes dismissed (by dummies) as “just” an edits artist, what I love so much about NAME IT! is the way it manages to feel so deeply personal and song-written while also being cheekily referential, taking sample loops of phrases like “rhythmatic movements, in unison with others” and “I believe there’s more” and turning them into personal mantras, magical items of protection, and spells to ward off enemies. It’s probably corny to call these songs “healing,” but that’s exactly what they’ve been to me; this is dance music at its most tender and its most liberating. The way Bored Lord utilizes these bits and pieces of her record collection and positions them as calls and responses to each other is a truly inspiring example of curation as personal expression.
The entire LP is fantastic—truly not a miss or wasted second on here—but the opening track “Luv” is an instant hall of famer for me. There’s something so natural about the way all the pieces come together; rather than trying to slavishly recreate the rave sounds of the past, she allows that history to be channeled *through* her, the human moments in between connecting it all.
“In my soul / But it’s also a celebration”
Dance Maniacs – JBW PRESENTS: BUILT LIKE THAT
Genre: Juke, House
Favorite Track: “Dance”
Brief caveat: in 2023 I became a regular at Scenario, the weekly show curated by LA legend Daddy Kev at the Love Song Bar. One of the privileges of that experience has been getting to know some very cool DJs and producers. All three of the Dance Maniacs (Avi Loud, Oak City Slums, and Liano) are people I see nearly every week at Scenario, so there is a degree of personal / hometown bias going on here. But if you talk to Kev, or the heads of JukeBounceWerk DJ Noir and Jae JBW, or to anyone else in LA who is tapped in, they will all tell you the same thing: the Dance Maniacs are the fucking truth.
Because LA’s dance music scene is so stratified between an EDM mainstream and a thriving yet scattered underground, it’s so rare for there to be something we all rally around as representative of the entire city. This combination of wild sprawl and the way this structure (or lack thereof) forces people with any semblance of taste towards the DIY Wild West makes the sound of LA’s best raves unruly, boisterous, and high-energy, diffuse influences from locals and transplants alike, ideas from around the world bouncing off each other with a common thread of energy tying it all together.
That spirit and that energy can be heard loud and clear on BUILT LIKE THAT, the first release for Dance Maniacs as a trio and the first non-compilation record to be released via JukeBounceWerk. It will be easy to make lazy comparisons to the four-man squad of DJ Swisha, AceMo, Kush Jones, and Moma Ready, or the dynamic producing trio OSSX, but the Dance Maniacs bring a distinct, West Coast flare to the blend of club styles that connect the satellites in the JBW extended universe. Every one of the tracks on BUILT LIKE THAT has a little piece of the individual styles of the three titular maniacs: Liano’s playful attitude and booty-bouncing, trunk-rattling bass, the percussive shake and techno torque of Oak City Slums, Avi Loud’s house bag and smooth blends that regularly prompt “M-V-P” chants from the other two. All eight of the tracks on this debut LP are “add this straight to the USB” winners, but “Dance” is the one that I think is most primed to take over clubs worldwide over the next few months, taking an iconic sample and using it just sparingly enough to avoid overdoing it. In a nod to the group’s relentless energy, the EP concludes with “Everything Is Backward,” a hype-up track disguised as a closer centered around an “Are you ready?” vocal snippet that encourages you to run the whole thing back and keep the party going.
This music is not without ancestors—the restless creative spirit of footwork pioneers like DJ Rashad, as well their namesake label Dance Mania (home to the recently departed DJ Deeon), are clear inspirations for their style, but the Dance Maniacs sound re-synthesizes these approaches and influences into something completely unique. As Daddy Kev put it, the Dance Maniacs have “fused electro, freestyle, house, and techno styles (among others) in a way that I didn’t think was possible.” There’s no tug of war between competing ideas going on BUILT LIKE THAT; this is three artists with different skillsets and influences meeting in the middle and creating something much greater than the sum of its parts. You can see it in action when they DJ as a trio—it’s not so much a b2b2b as it is one DJ hive mind playing with three heads and six arms. Getting to see them form this chemistry in real time has been crazy to watch, and I can’t wait to see what they do next.
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