breakdown
13 tracksA section where the beat drops out or thins, leaving pads, melody or vocals. On a dance floor it gives a moment to breathe before the music builds back.
Form and structure
drop
2 tracks.
What it is
The moment after a build-up when the full beat and bassline return, often after a short silence. It is the release the arrangement has been preparing.
Read more on WikipediaRelated concepts
build-up
24 tracksA passage that raises tension toward a release: rising pitch, faster drum rolls, opening filters, added layers. In dance music it prepares the drop.
half-time
0 tracksA feel in which the backbeat (the snare) comes half as often, so the music seems to move at half the speed while the tempo stays the same. Trap and dubstep use it to make a drop feel heavy.
Hear it in these tracks
Kygo, Maty Noyes
Stay
Soft-focus tropical house from Kygo, with plucked melodies and a warm, pleading vocal from Maty Noyes asking someone not to leave just yet.
Anna Lunoe
Radioactive
Anna Lunoe's Radioactive, her 2016 debut on OWSLA, is a strobe-lit 'hyperhouse' banger sung in her own voice, all clipped vocal hooks, rave stabs and a low end built to rattle a festival tent.