Browsing Tag

edm

Nafsi’s anthem, Higher, pushes EDM euphoria to its limit of transcendence

Posted on 28 October 2025
https://open.spotify.com/track/0eY0QXN5VnrCl2eSaNW2B3?si=9d6f88a761f64862

Nafsi reached the peak of EDM transcendence with Higher, his latest floor-filling single that drags you straight into the kind of rapture only a body in motion can understand. With elements of progressive house pop written into the mix, there are as many hooks as there are drops, yet this isn’t an even-keel ride through euphoria. Nafsi knows exactly how to toy with your rhythmic expectations, throwing frenetic constellations of stabbing and strobing synths into the fray until you’re caught between chaos and bliss, unable to decide which state you’d rather stay in.

Higher captures that pulse-quickening moment on the dancefloor when tension turns kinetic, when the crowd moves as one, and you forget your body has limits. There’s a sensory thrill running through the production that’s impossible to fake. You can hear every ounce of control, every heartbeat behind the build-ups, and the restraint that keeps the track from tipping into indulgence.

The Canadian-born, South Asian electronic artist and producer has built a signature sound around fusing bouncy basslines with moody textures and emotional depth. Drawing inspiration from John Summit, D.O.D., and Fred again.., Nafsi shaped Higher with both underground finger on the pulse grit and the global appeal of an Ibiza anthem in the making. At this point, the only way is up.

Higher is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Xiranda blasted Beethoven with Bass in ‘Moonlight Sonata (Dubstep Remix)’

Posted on 11 September 2025

Xiranda put her mettle as a classically trained pianist and composer to the ultimate test with Moonlight Sonata (Dubstep Remix). Pulling Beethoven from candlelit reverence and hurling him into the hedonism of the bass pits, she proved how far orchestral gravitas can be twisted without snapping. The ornate grace of the original sonata crashes headlong into juggernaut drops, string-swelled crescendos are swallowed by sonic filth, and spatial effects stretch the drama until it feels near-operatic. It is cerebral, monstrous, and knowingly excessive, as though she produced it with a Machiavellian grin.

That grin was hard-earned. With degrees from NYU, USC, and Berklee, and years of shaping sound for Sony Music, Xiranda sharpened her instincts in Hollywood’s film-scoring circles before channelling them into darker electronic forms. Her command of orchestral arrangement doesn’t restrain her, it fuels the chaos, pushing EDM into something beyond cinematic. With her forthcoming EP, Symphony of Shadows, she’ll drag Mozart, Vivaldi, and Pachelbel through the same infernal machinery, proving her territory lies where classical mastery collides with rave culture.

If we were any more obsessed with Xiranda and her, what some may find heretical, ability to contour classical music into carnage, she would need to get a restraining order out against us.

Moonlight Sonata (Dubstep Remix) is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Alt Rap Gets Hauntingly Honest in DARNELL’s Bittersweet ‘Play It Again’

Posted on 14 July 2025

With his unapologetically raw debut, DARNELL launched back onto the airwaves with Play It Again, letting the world witness the kind of alt rap EDM that cuts deeper the more you listen. The irony is woven straight into the title, as each listen circles back on itself, like regret pressed onto vinyl and left spinning until sunrise.

DARNELL’s vocals switch gears at will, pirouetting from rafter-reaching, feel-good soul in the choruses to the bittersweet, confessionalism that lands punch after punch in the verses. There’s a bruised euphoria to the groove, one that dances on the tension between hope and heartbreak, mirroring the story DARNELL unravels: a painfully honest apology to the woman caught in the fallout of his sudden fame.

Instead of hiding behind bravado or ego, DARNELL leans straight into emotional exposure. The signature drum and bass pulses tie the track to his roots in UK Hip-Hop and R&B, but his vocal dynamism is what lets the pain twist itself into pure sonic catharsis.

His vocal delivery breathes like a haunted echo through memories he’s refused to let go of, every loop haunted by the weight of his past actions. Known by many from his time on Big Brother UK, DARNELL is refusing to let that be his legacy by transforming vulnerability into aural altitude.

If Play It Again is the opening salvo, he’s making a convincing case for a chart takeover.

Play It Again is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.


Review by Amelia Vandergast

Dark Euphoria Reigns in Tamta’s ‘THE VILLAIN HEROINE’ Electronica LP

Posted on 9 July 2025

To describe Tamta as a queer icon would be doing her a disservice; she razes every industry she touches and never fails to make an impression. While some artists strive to be forces to be reckoned with, she’s an electronic icon worth getting on your knees for; the vanilla-minded probably won’t want to imagine what carnal urges she sparks at her residency in SMUT and Berghain.

While there’s no disputing there’s a razor edge to her sound, it doesn’t falter in accessibility; anyone can submerge themselves in the synthesis of dark magnetism and pulsating euphoria that flows through THE VILLAIN HEROINE, a record dripping in international (sex) appeal.

Her ability to breed escapism into her mixes results in transcendence spilling through your speakers, while the live experience leaves those surrendering their body beat to a nirvana of 8-bit-esque EDM. The sonic palette is laced with pop hooks, industrial attitude, and the sense that pleasure always wins over restraint.

Whether she’s packing out Pride stages to 80,000 in Barcelona and Madrid, turning X Factor into her playground in Greece and Georgia, or stealing fashion spotlights for Vogue, Mugler, or Marie Claire, Tamta proves herself as a cultural catalyst. With over 250 million streams and a habit of selling out her headline shows, this is an artist who doesn’t pander to expectation. She creates the night, owns it, and leaves the sunrise waiting.

THE VILLAIN HEROINE is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

– Review by Amelia Vandergast

Rick Holden Poured Grief Into Progressive House in the Celestial Lament See Your Soul Again

Posted on 19 June 2025

Rick Holden set the bar for emotive EDM production sky-high with See Your Soul Again, a progressive house elegy that drapes sentiment over a four-to-the-floor pulse until it splits open with catharsis. Built in memory of his father, the track doesn’t shy away from the jagged edges of loss; instead, it channels them into a euphorically heart-bruising experience that proves Holden’s ability to stir far more than dancefloor ecstasy.

While the beat propels the body, it’s the purity-bleeding female vocals that direct the emotional voltage. With crystalline clarity, they reach beyond the clouds and into the quiet corners where grief keeps its secrets. Lyrically, Holden doesn’t crowd the space; instead, he lets the weight of the words and the swell of cinematic textures strike with precision. It’s ambient house stretched to its most human limit, with melodies that feel pulled from the same place as the memory of someone you’re not ready to stop loving.

Originally from Droylsden, Manchester, Holden first began composing on a Commodore 64 before evolving into a producer who scored the official theme for Manchester’s 2025 Eurovision party, Manchagen. With See Your Soul Again, he swaps out the superficial for the soul-bearing and reminds listeners that dance music can move more than limbs; it can bring ghosts into the light, if only for a few sacred minutes.

See Your Soul Again is now available on all major streaming platforms, including YouTube. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Nabi Awada Transformed Club Voltage into Cultural Commentary in ‘Run It Up’

Posted on 8 June 2025

Nabi Awada effortlessly ran up the streams with his massive debut single that boasts a production so indomitable, it leaves little space in the genre for any fresh contender. Run It Up throws down arena-ready hip-hop with unapologetic intensity. Between the throbbing EDM basslines that shake adrenaline into the foundation and his voracious vocal presence, it swallows you whole and spits out any inferior earworms before the chorus even lands.

If Run It Up dropped in a club, the dancefloor would be pushed to rhythmic fervour by the strobing synthetics that slam provocative momentum into every beat. Awada knew exactly what he was doing. Every element amplifies the aural hype until it amalgamates into an EDM hip-hop juggernaut that even Chase & Status would be forced to respect.

Born in Beirut and raised in the shadows of war, Awada arrived with more than bars. After scaling a $100M business, he stepped into the booth not for accolades but to architect a legacy. There’s no label push here, just calculated execution, elite storytelling and cinematic trap sonics sharp enough to cut through anything dull in the charts.

His sound fuses club energy with cultural commentary. His bars hold weight because they come from survival, not spectacle. Run It Up doesn’t just reflect a come-up — it is one, with every line a testament to grit, ambition and generational intention.

Run It Up is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Damon Fletcher Powered Up Electro Pop Liberation in the Euphoric Dance Anthem ‘I Let It Go’

Posted on 14 May 2025

With a slamming four-to-the-floor beat and euphoric pop vocals that bleed zeal over the kinetic energy of the dance-pop melodies, I Let It Go goes beyond preaching the sanctity of a free heart, mind and soul. Damon Fletcher gave his audience the momentum to push their lives to the heights he hit with this electro-pop earworm, which renders progressive house pop into the anthemics while never letting classic pop songwriting slip. Once you hear it, you’ll know your summer pop playlists won’t be the same without it.

The beat strikes with purpose, the hooks hit with intent, and through it all, Fletcher reminds his listeners what it means to embrace freedom without fear. His flair for cinematic visuals was just as present in this release, which follows the viral music videos that first saw him go viral with Hustle with a Purpose during lockdown. Even then, while the world stalled, he didn’t.

Born almost blind, and undeterred by a global shutdown, Fletcher launched his career with contactless DIY videos that set the standard for pandemic-era creativity. 2 Miles gave him a vehicle for his worldview; Ready proved he could go the full distance. Now with I Let It Go, Fletcher is riding that same ambition but with more force, clarity, and polish than ever before.

The hype surrounding him never came from gimmicks or luck. It stemmed from resilience, vision, and a refusal to move without passion. That energy is baked into I Let It Go – and you can feel every beat of it.

I Let It Go is now available to stream on all major platforms; for the full experience, stream the official music video on YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast.

Rick Holden Bound Devotion in a Sonic Halo in the Vocal Trance Anthem ‘You Are the One’

Posted on 4 May 2025

When it comes to sonic embodiments of the resolute nature of unconditional love, they don’t come much more rapturous than Rick Holden’s latest single, You Are the One. The oscillations of pure impassion, the transcendent tones visualising the cathartic sanctity of soul-deep affection, the vocals soaring beyond the confines of material reality and the lyrics with no sense of pretence all contribute to an affecting floor-filling anthem while becoming so much more than the sum of its parts. Sweat deserves to drip over this fervent earworm throughout the summer.

With his latest single, the Manchester-based trance producer Rick Holden channelled nostalgia into a visceral manifestation of early 2000s Clubland euphoria. Built from the bones of old-school trance and polished in modern sheen, the independently released track harnesses the exact kind of emotion most producers would struggle to translate through a DAW. Using Vital synths to sculpt the spectral timbres and sealing the soundscape in Audacity, Holden engineered a clean yet explosive hit, laced with ethereal synthwork and pulsing beats that beg for movement.

The roots of his sound stretch back to the ‘90s, cutting his teeth on Commodore 64 and Amiga software before sharpening his melodic instincts with a Roland XP50 and Cubase. Now, he filters decades of underground dancefloor magic through a refined sonic lens that refuses to dilute the emotion at its core.

You Are the One is now available to stream on all major platforms, including YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast.

Viresha Found Rhythm in Transcendence with Her Organic Tech House Debut, Flow of Life

Posted on 16 April 2025
Viresha

Hit play and permit the augmentations of transcendent spirituality to slam and spiral through your speakers as the synthesis of organic house and techno in Viresha’s debut, Flow of Life awakens the senses. Like a tribal calling to the dancefloor, the instrumental radio edit of Flow of Life delivers exactly what it says on the tin—encapsulating what it means to be human in the tension and catharsis of the progressions, which seamlessly shift as a tribute to the trials we face and the sanctuaries we can lead ourselves to if we ebb to the flow of life.

Viresha—the moniker chosen by Swedish producer, DJ, and breast cancer survivor Anna—channelled her invincible strength into every beat of her self-written and self-produced debut. Drawing from years behind the decks and deep immersion in vinyl and radio culture, she’s carved out a sound steeped in tribal, Latino, afro, melodic tech, and downtempo roots. Her style doesn’t borrow; it builds. There’s structure in the sonic chaos, purpose in the propulsion, and emotion that doesn’t just flirt with the surface but cuts clean through it.

From her past to her pulse-raising future—including her forthcoming attendance at Tomorrowland Academy—Viresha is proof that it’s never too late to create something worth dancing to—debuts rarely come as strong as this fierce rhythmic reckoning.

Flow of Life is now available to stream on all major platforms via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast.

Whit2Boi’s Progressive House KPop Earworm, ‘Set the Vive’, Pulses Through the Cracks of Reality

Posted on 8 April 2025
Whit2Boi

Whit2Boi threw out the rulebook to make room for an innovative recalibration of electronic music with his KPop-laced house anthem Set the Vive, featuring the exhilarating vocal presence of Estelle. While Western EDM producers cling to worn-out formulas, Whit2Boi architects an entirely different experience—one that abstracts your senses from material reality and relocates you into the textural transcendence of his sound.

Set the Vive is a slamming EDM house release that hypersonically injects euphoria into every drop. The builds, however, are where Whit2Boi’s signature hits hardest. Meditative textures ripple through the structure with spiritual and naturalistic ambience, dialling back the intensity just long enough to let the anticipation simmer into something more divine than mechanical.

Where other artists are happy to build club tracks for disposable escapism, Set the Vive constructs a world beyond imagination and delivers you straight into it. This isn’t an anthem for losing yourself on the dancefloor. It’s full-body escapism from an artist who understands how to make the synthetic feel sentient.

Discover Whit2Boi on SoundCloud. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast