Santé, Richard Judge
Awake
Santé lays a deep, rolling groove under J.U.D.G.E's grave, soulful voice, six minutes of dark-room house that feels like the first clear thought after a long night.
Feeling
introspective
23 tracks.
Mount Sims
Ashes
A smouldering piece of dark synth-pop that opens Mount Sims' 2004 album Wild Light: cold machines and a weary croon circle the remains of something that burned out long ago.
Marek Hemmann
Gemini
Nine minutes of melodic German minimal from the Jena label Freude am Tanzen: Marek Hemmann's Gemini drives on a swinging house groove while synth patterns and funky tenor-sax licks twist around each other.
Klyne
Waiting
A slow, stripped-down slice of dark electronic R&B from the Eindhoven duo Klyne, where Nick Klein's soft, close-miked voice drifts over sparse beats and muted synths; the new song on their 2015 Closer EP.
Jain
City
The closing song of Jain's 2015 Hope EP, produced by Yodelice: her bright, slightly mischievous voice riding a homemade-sounding beat that mixes pop simplicity with the rhythmic colours of a childhood spent between Dubai, Congo and Abu Dhabi.
Chet Faker
Talk Is Cheap
A wistful, treated saxophone line, a lazy, warm beat and Chet Faker's husky croon make this Built on Glass lead single the definition of late-night electronic soul, and triple j's number one song of 2014.
Hania Rani
Full Performance (Live on KEXP)
A serene, immersive 36-minute KEXP session recorded in July 2022: the Polish pianist and composer Hania Rani plays 24.03, Ghosts, Komeda Part 3 and Buka on piano and synthesizers, pieces that would reach her later albums.
Bonaparte, Acid Pauli
Not Today
Berlin's dance-punk ringmaster Bonaparte and the electronic producer Acid Pauli, once of The Notwist, trade a sly, defiant refrain in a 2020 single that sings from the point of view of something humanity has wronged and now asks for rescue.
IDLES
The Wheel
IDLES' song about the cycle of alcoholism passed from mother to son, from their 2021 album Crawler: a menacing one-note riff, heavy chords and Joe Talbot howling a gospel-preacher call, here in a live KEXP session.
Northern Lite
Trusting Blind
The 2001 debut single of Erfurt's Northern Lite, released on their own 1st Decade Records: techno roots turning into electronic pop, with ambient pads, a steady bassline and a slow build toward a driving finish.
Mélissa Laveaux
Needle in the Hay
Mélissa Laveaux, a Montreal-born singer-songwriter of Haitian descent, recasts Elliott Smith's bleak 1995 song for percussive finger-style guitar, double bass, claps and drums on her 2008 album Camphor & Copper.
Gorgon City
Hard On Me
Gorgon City's sleek, late-night deep house meets Maverick Sabre's raw, soulful voice on Hard On Me, the closing track of their 2014 debut album Sirens: a plea for gentleness carried by a steady, rolling groove.
Roseaux
Walking on the Moon
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
Primitive
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.
Nina Simone
Sinnerman (Felix Da Housecat's Heavenly House Mix)
'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.
Feist
My Moon My Man
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.
Whilk & Misky
Darklands
'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.
Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs
Garden
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.
Her
Five Minutes
'Five Minutes' is the second single by Her, the French duo of Simon Carpentier and Victor Solf: clean-cut, R&B-tinged pop of finger clicks, rippling guitars and layered vocals, from their debut Tape #1.
Basement Freaks
Soul Intoxication (Lonely Boy's Detox Dub)
Los Angeles producer Lonely Boy strips a funk track by the Greek producer Basement Freaks down to a hypnotic house dub, issued on Jalapeno Records in 2013 and later picked up by French lounge compilations.
Alif Tree
Forgotten Places
'Forgotten Places' is a hushed downtempo piece by the Marseille producer Alif Tree, built around a sampled voice of the jazz singer Shirley Horn and released on Compost Records in 2006: nu-jazz that sounds like a memory being replayed.
Kollektiv Turmstrasse
On The Streets (Let Freedom)
Hamburg duo Kollektiv Turmstrasse's 2009 'Let Freedom' remix of Federleicht's On the Streets: melancholic, melodic house of deep beats and slowly unfolding synths, from the label that later released their album.
Marcu Rares
Camimosa
An eighteen-minute minimal track by the Romanian producer Marcu Rareș, the title piece of his 2018 EP for the Romanian minimal techno label Welter Records.