It’s the Friday before the Fourth of July, and chances are you’re going to want to do some dancing by the barbecue. So we’d like to help. This week we’ve selected three hot, current dance jams for you to fuel your get-together — or just ID when you’re moving to them on a crowded dance floor. (The clubs are still open, right?) And we’ve added YouTube embeds for each song, just to whet your appetite beyond what you’ll get from the grill and the cooler.
LCD Soundsystem, “Drunk Girls (Holy Ghost! Remix)” (DFA/Adult Swim)
Context really is everything, isn’t it? On the album and the radio, “Drunk Girls” galumphs agreeably enough, but it thins out pretty quick. Not so this dashing synth-disco makeover from Holy Ghost!, one of the stars of LCD leader James Murphy’s DFA Records roster: The gliding bass line glows like neon, and the vocal’s slight reconfiguring (the backing chants are more sparingly used here) underlines the emotive qualities of Murphy’s voice, even when he’s shouting nonsense. Best of all, you can download it for free from the Adult Swim link above.
Ricardo Miranda, “Black Acid (Legowelt Remix)” (Hour House Is Your Rush)
No surprise at all that the original version of this crunchy throwback — the jabbering 303 and dry synth-handclaps are textbook acid-house — comes from a Chicago producer: That’s where this sound originated and first thrived. But it’s the intervention of the Hague’s Legowelt that kicks it into full gear. He adds some cheesy-menacing organ, thickens the bass line till it oozes like molasses, and layers on extra percussion. The result is no less late-’80s than Miranda’s original, but it’s also deeper, weirder, and more addictive.
Peter Van Hoesen & Donato Dozzy, “Talis” (Curle)
“Strip It, Boost It” is the instructive title of one of the highlights of this up-and-coming Belgian DJ-producer’s Entropic City, which sounds even better as a nonstop bruiser of a four-track EP (titled, naturally, Entropic Minus Six). Yet he fares just as well on this lighter, flightier collaboration with Italy’s Dozzy, in which the flickering, mysterious greyscale of classic Chain Reaction-style dub-techno is married to a comfortable, almost nonchalant house pulse rather than something artier or more minimalist. If you crave something more straightforwardly banging and just as good, try this split 12-inch’s B-side, Matt O’Brien’s “Into the Red.”