Review
Genre and Mood
Nu’s Dance in My Pants, made with Christopher Schwarzwälder, is electronic music from the deep house end of Berlin’s open-air scene, and its title says what it is for. The mood is playful and groovy: UBWG, a Swiss club magazine, called it a very danceable number and the record’s real insider tip.
Song Summary
The track is the third and last on We Love The Sun, Nu’s first EP of his own on Bar 25 Music, released on 12 July 2011 as BAR25-019. The EP is named after its title track, Who Loves the Sun, sung by Jo.Ke, and a remix of it by Acid Pauli; this is the dancefloor B-side. What UBWG heard in it is specific: short vocal snippets, wind instruments and even harmonica. MusicBrainz and the label’s upload credit it to Nu & Christopher Schwarzwälder; it runs six minutes and 40 seconds.
Musical Breakdown
No source follows the track in order, so this breakdown keeps to the sounds UBWG names.
Main Section
Listen for three colours over the groove: the vocal snippets, fragments rather than verses; the wind instruments; and the harmonica, which UBWG mentions with some surprise. How they are arranged and when they appear is not described, so notice where each one enters.
Concepts in Focus
The record belongs to Berlin’s club culture. Bar 25 was a summer-only bar, open-air club and cultural venue on the Spree in Friedrichshain, known for parties that lasted up to 48 hours; it closed in September 2010 and ran its own label. UBWG heard the EP as a memento of beautiful days at the former club, released ten months after it shut.
The credits show how a <a href=“https://korczis.github.io/sonic-playground/concept/featured-artist/” class=“concept-link font-medium text-primary-700 underline decoration-dotted underline-offset-4 hover:decoration-solid dark:text-primary-400” data-concept=“featured-artist” title=“A guest performer credited on another artist’s track, usually as “feat.”: a rapper’s verse, a singer’s hook or a second voice. Features bring together different styles and audiences and are central to hip-hop, R&B and dance music.“>featured artist can appear later. Bar 25 Music’s own upload names Nu & Chris Schwarzwälder; when Bar 25 repressed the EP on vinyl in 2018, Sound Shelter listed the track as Dance In My Pants (feat Iannis Ritter). The sources do not say what Ritter contributes.
Artistic Context
UBWG describes Nu as a live act who had worked across deep house, hip hop, trip hop, ambient, experimental and dance music and even film and theatre music, and whose previous release, Fool, came out on White Music. His title track for the EP has a page here too: Nu, Jo.Ke – Who Loves the Sun.
Impact and Reception
Its reception is quieter than its title track’s: one magazine’s tip, a vinyl repress seven years later, and a place in the owner’s yearbook. It is here as the B-side that is all movement. Play it after Who Loves the Sun and hear the same EP turn from song to dance.
