Instrument
243 tracks.
The Horrorist
'One Night In New York City' is The Horrorist's dark techno story of a naive suburban girl's night in the city, first released in 1996 on his own Things To Come label and a German dance number one in 2001, told in a cold spoken voice over a driving machine beat.
Roseaux
The French collective Roseaux and the American soul singer Aloe Blacc turn the Police's 1979 reggae hit into an unhurried soul song, the most famous track of their 2012 album of covers.
Róisín Murphy
The slow, string-laced turn on Róisín Murphy's 2007 electro-disco album Overpowered, co-written with Ill Factor and arranged by Philadelphia soul veteran Larry Gold, heard here in a live performance from the album's era.
Portugal. The Man
Portugal. The Man's Grammy-winning sleeper hit: a quick, swinging slice of psychedelic funk-pop that borrows its melody from Motown's Please Mr. Postman and rides one of the decade's most recognisable basslines.
Pomplamoose
Pomplamoose's 2019 cover of Daft Punk's 'Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger': a robot anthem built from a sample and a vocoder, replayed by a live band with real keys, bass, drums and human voices, and filmed so that everything you hear, you see.
Nina Simone
'Sinnerman (Felix Da Housecat's Heavenly House Mix)' sets Nina Simone's ten-minute 1965 recording of a traditional spiritual about a sinner with nowhere to hide inside a four-and-a-half-minute house groove, for Verve Remixed 2 in 2003.
Nancy Sinatra
Nancy Sinatra's 1966 version of Sonny Bono's song, built on Billy Strange's haunting tremolo guitar, is a hushed ballad of childhood love and betrayal that Quentin Tarantino revived over the opening credits of Kill Bill.
Michelle Gurevich
'Party Girl' is the home-recorded title song of Michelle Gurevich's 2007 debut, made under the name Chinawoman: a slow, deadpan contralto ballad about nightlife that became her best-known song and gave its title to a Cannes-winning film.
Luca Malina
'FCKRZ' is a 2021 single by the Viennese singer Luca Malina, R&B-inspired pop about the darker side of relationships, produced by Luca Pivetz with guitar by Lukas Koffler and a self-made video.
Funky Fat & Digitaria
Two Brazilian acts, the Belo Horizonte trio Funky Fat and the duo Digitaria, meet on Jamie Jones and Lee Foss's label Hot Creations in 2012: a slower, electro-slanted house track of soaring synths, grumbling stabs and breathy vocals.
Fernanda Porto
Fernanda Porto's own Sambassim: the São Paulo composer's song that fused samba and bossa nova melody with electronic beats and helped name a style, drum 'n' bossa.
Feist
The first single from Feist's The Reminder (2007), co-written and produced with Chilly Gonzales: a sly, piano-led indie pop song about love and longing, danced through an empty airport at night in Patrick Daughters' video.
Fatboy Slim
'Sunset (Bird of Prey)' is Fatboy Slim's 2000 single built around Jim Morrison's voice, sampled from the Doors' 'Bird of Prey': a slow-rising, sun-bleached dance track whose video sends a 1960s fighter pilot on a hallucination.
Clawfinger
'Biggest & The Best' is the lead single from Clawfinger's 1997 self-titled album: Swedish-Norwegian rap metal with industrial programming, aimed squarely at people who think they are almighty.
Cardi B
'WAP' is a bold and provocative hip-hop track by Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion: a minimal beat, a looped Baltimore club chant and two rappers trading explicit, joyfully unapologetic verses about desire.
Caravan Palace
Caravan Palace's 2015 single fuses 1930s-style swing with club beats and Zoé Colotis's voice, and its animated video of a brawl in a bar full of animals made it one of the most-watched electro-swing tracks ever.
Whilk & Misky
'Darklands' is one of the first two songs the London duo Whilk & Misky ever wrote: a slow-burning blend of blues guitar, electronic production and a voice that starts quietly and ends up belting, from their 2014 debut EP The First Sip.
Deluxe
'Tum Rakak' is a song by Deluxe, the moustachioed band from Aix-en-Provence: a funky live-band groove in B-flat minor with Liliboy singing a gleefully absurd lyric about curiosity, party crumbs and a truck that reeks in the heat.
Tubbe
The queer electropunk duo Tubbe, who moved from Munich to Berlin in 2013, set the small-town dream of the big city against its confetti, noise and 1-euro-shop reality, a 2015 synth-pop single from their Audiolith album Keine Arbeit lieber Tanzen.
Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs
Orlando Higginbottom's breakthrough as Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs: lush synths, a dance-floor pulse and Luisa Gerstein's voice, first on a 2010 Greco-Roman EP and then a 2011 Polydor single that soundtracked Nokia's Lumia adverts.
Timo Maas
Timo Maas's 'Shifter', featuring MC Chickaboo, is a driving 2002 single from his debut album Loud: German club production at the meeting point of house and breakbeat, with an MC riding the groove; a UK top 40 hit.
Sleaford Mods
'Tweet Tweet Tweet' by Sleaford Mods is a gritty post-punk rant born on a dismal bus ride, aimed at people lost in their phones and at the politics of 2014 England, filmed here live for KEXP in 2023: one man pressing play, one man spitting fire.
Nouvelle Vague
Nouvelle Vague turn the Dead Kennedys' punk satire into a hushed bossa nova sung by Camille, a 2004 cover whose softness makes the lyric more absurd and more unsettling than the original's noise.
Miike Snow
Miike Snow's 2012 lead single sets sing-along melancholy over glitchy piano chords and a four-on-the-floor house beat, recorded in a Stockholm studio once used by ABBA.
