Current Wave American Dance Music

A lot of my favorite current dance music is made by cats who have been in the game for a long time. Theo Parrish, Kai Alcè, Glenn Underground, etc. While these guys remain at the top of their game and are always high quality, for this music to grow there has to be an influx of new talent.

Omar-S introduced us to Kyle Hall through his Fxhe release over a decade ago now, and in that time Kyle has been at the forefront of what I consider to be the current generation of American dance music artists. His newest record Equanimity is a perfect example of this. Funky and deep with a bit of a broken beat vibe, this whole record along with his last 7” Eutrophia Sevan represents a maturation of his early sound after having taken a detour into more rugged Dance Mania influenced jams circa The Boat Party. Mixing experimental beat patterns with solid musicality (and in the case of “Katastematic Pleasure”, a bit of technical assistance from GU himself) Kyle has refined his style into something quite special. Every new release immediately goes into my rotation and stays there. I’m looking forward to dropping the new one this weekend.

As much as his own music stands out in the current dance music landscape, his nose for new talent might even be a more important aspect of what he has been doing. Through his Wild Oats label Kyle has helped to break a number of the most interesting new artists to come from the US. Jay Daniel, Manuel Gonzales, Jay Simon, Byron the Aquarius, Q’D’, and more have all had releases that were either their vinyl debut or very early in their careers on Wild Oats.

https://youtu.be/XFeHuc6bQSo

That is an amazing list of names. Some of those have gone on to bigger things: Jay Daniel’s first LP was on Ninja Tune sublabel Technicolour and has since started his own label Watusi High which will release his next album TALA in a few weeks, Byron has gone on to release on a wide range of labels including Eglo and more, Jay Simon’s Must Have Records has released music old and new including the biggest hit by Seven Davis Jr., and Manny has been dropping music across many labels including FIT and Don’t Be Afraid. It’s only been a couple months since the excellent and overlooked Q’D’ record dropped so we will have to wait and see what the future holds for him.

Theo Parrish’s Sound Signature has also been fertile ground for new artists. In addition to the early releases by Jay Daniel and Byron the Aquarius, the Roots That Talk EP introduced two new artists in Julion De’Angelo and Thomas Xu. And while he may have been established in hiphop, Theo has also had a hand in breaking Waajeed into dance music by working with him on production as well as releases on Sound Signature. Waajeed’s newest release “Strength” on his own Dirt Tech label features remixes by Jay Daniel and Jon Dixon (more on him later in this post).

Kai Alcè has also had his hand in breaking new artists through his NDAtl label. Javonntte had released a few records as far back as the 90s on small labels but it was his EP The Musical Stylings Of… that made him a known commodity to the seemingly dozens of labels he has released on since. NDAtl was also the label that kickstarted Stefan Ringer’s popularity with The Fix EP back in 2014. This year has been a good one for Stefan too as he started his own label FWM Entertainment in which he released his best record so far as well as continuing his Floppy Life collaboration with Kai (that debuted on an NDAtl Special Edition) with their first full release on Basement Floor.

Jon Dixon’s name first appeared on a Timeline release on Underground Resistance back in 2011. Since then he has played on releases by Kyle Hall and Waajeed, released a record on Planet E, and started his own label 4EVR 4WRD. This new label kicked off with a dope but rare Timeline record which was followed by the Anita Baker sampling future classic “Fly Free”. The newest release is in the process of making its way out into the world now, and it is maybe the best one so far, Jon’s Sampa EP. Moving between banging percussion jams, deep vocal house, downtempo, and warm love sounding techno, this record manages to pay tribute to Brazil while sounding very much modern and American.

Patrice Scott has also been around for a while, but his recent evolution in production style fits him firmly in with the rest of this wave. Moments & Concepts EP, like Soul Food and The Detroit Upright before it, takes a more jazzy and broken beat swing and it feels fresh and modern while retaining a connection to classic soulful music across many genres. His remix of Alton Miller’s “All The Little Things” stands out as well with its jazzy vocal garage vibes but in a 2018 style. His Sistrum label also dropped a killer Javonntte record.

In fact this music all shares some similar traits. It tends to be musical, soulful, lean towards broken or heavily shuffled beats, and has connections to previous generations of American dance music without being soundalike. There are a number of other DJs, artists, releases, and labels that fit into this sound as well. And when you combine it with the older generations of disco, house, and techno, it feels really complete. There are even tight connections to some of the best and most interesting European artists and labels like Neroli, 2000 Black, Funkineven, and more.

With all of this going on and the high profiles of some of the artists involved, you might expect to see these music and it’s connections being celebrated, even in the media. Yet to the best of my knowledge there hasn’t been even a single attempt to view it all together as part of a single movement or wave of dance music. But to me, that’s exactly what it is. And it has been creeping up slowly, building organically, and being music first. All it takes to see it is a little bit of connect-the-dots. Many of these cats are playing each other’s music in their sets, playing at each other’s parties, etc. But I guess if you’re out there thinking about things that aren’t music, you could easily miss it in the rest of the noise.