August 2024 new EDM

 

August NEW EDM: Zedd, Sabrina Carpenter, Alan Walker, and more!

Singles

🗑 TRASH 🗑

[None that I paid attention to]

MID

GREAT

🔥 FIRE 🔥 

🔥 8/13 = Netrum - Always Be

Albums/EPs 

8/1 = ISOKNOCK, ISOxo, Knock2 - 4EVR
 - ISOxo and Knock2 have FINALLY teamed up for a duo album, they've collaborated and remixed each other for so long and played shows and b2b's for so long. In 4EVR, you'll hear some of the filthiest drops and dubstep you'll hear with grand movements and soundscapes that create such an unforgiving intensity. Sometimes during the rawcore sections I literally have to skip the song, and listening to the entire 8-track album through was so intense. There's like sirens in every song dude. Don't get me wrong, this is some great music and great drops that I respect (aside from rawcore), it's just that there aren't any downtempo midsections that provide contrast, it's just pure festival targets and bangers.
 - With that being said, there's actually some really nice variation and grooves throughout the album that really make this a cohesive record. I really enjoyed some of the vocals and production in "SIGNAL", "BLIND", and "SMACK TALK". "BLIND" is an amazing inclusion of a track that I feel should've been earlier in the set, as it would be such a nice change of pace halfway through the album instead of the penultimate. 
Rating = 8/10
Favorite Tracks = "BLIND", "SIGNAL", "4EVR", "SMACKTALK"

8/1 = Ellis - signals EP
 - Here comes Ellis with a calm 3-track EP to kick off August and it leans heavily into the funk side of house with the synths, guitars, and loops. These tracks are great but none of these melodies or drops are really exceptional or explosive as past Ellis tracks, they're more laid back and calm, more soothing. Must be very appealing to these types of funk house groove enjoyers. I will say "back to life" is a really nice bright house track for me. 
Rating = 7/10
Favorite Tracks = "back to life"

8/2 = Whales - Computer Music EP
 - Whales has released an EP on Disciple which is cool but it's just a whole bunch of Computer Music dubstep/riddim and most of these drops really hurt my ears. Riddim really isn't for me especially with how these drops are constructed with all the emptiness and just pure rhythmic spamming with no melody or hope of melody at all. There's vocals in opening track "Til Tomorrow" which are pretty solid until the riddim drop comes in. I will say the dubstep in "Serum Presets" has some nice substance to it, but that's really all the EP offers.
Rating = 4/10
Favorite Tracks = "Serum Presets"

8/2 = Gryffin - PULSE
 - A grueling 14-track long album from Gryffin that's just pure commercial house with the blandest melodies and drops that are so filler. There's so many tracks the only plus side is that I'm less hesitant to skip. There's a unique vocalist for every track yet somehow every track sounds the same, besides the Armin van Buuren collab which is an ok track. 
 - Album really isn't worth talking about, but it's worth noticing the collabs with Kpop MAX from "Stupid In Love", Slippy which is a monstercat artist, Whethan, John Newman famous for "Blame" and "Love Me Again", and PollyAnna from NIVIRO's "Fast Lane" so it's a fairly stacked roster but these drops that Gryffin puts are just criminal how plain it is.
Rating = 3.5/10
Favorite Tracks = "MAGNET (with MAX)"

8/7 = Alan Walker - Neon Nights EP
 - Alan Walker has finally arrived on Monstercat and it comes to produce some sound tracks for a rocket league season or something. What this EP made me realize was still how huge Alan Walker is, these mid songs are literally getting hundreds of thousands of streams on spotify and "Wake Up" got 2.2m streams which is a lot for monstercat standards. Alan Walker def has a very dedicated and international fanbase that I never thought would exist in 2024.
 - Now production wise besides "Wake Up" all these tracks sound the same, bland melodies, same iconic Alan Walker synths, vocalists all sound the same, verses are so boring. Like the pacing and the synth pads are just so copy paste among all of modern Alan Walker music. "Wake Up" honestly was a really solid track that had some nice sampling and strong melodies, and "Club Leclerc" is also a change of scenery with more production-dominant speed-house inspired mixing. I will say that the entire EP along with modern Alan Walker has this "dystopia" feel and it's become so characteristic, I almost feel like he doesn't even try to choose these dystopian tempos and synths it's just natural to him and his style.
Rating = 6/10
Favorite Tracks = "Wake Up"

8/16 = CloudNone - Bliss EP
 - A downtempo monstercat instinct-esque album from CloudNone. There's some nice vocals here especially from Linney on "Quiet Of My Mind" but the drops all around this EP just don't hit for me. It's just kind of bland and not melodic enough. Because of that there's definitely purpose to this album but nothing worth revisiting besides maybe the instrumentals of title track "Bliss" that are pretty soothing.
Rating = 6/10
Favorite Tracks = "Quiet Of My Mind", "Bliss"


8/23 = Sabrina Carpenter - Short n' Sweet
  - Sabrina Carpenter's Short n' Sweet marks a big entrance in the pop scene as Sabrina's previous 2 singles Espresso and Please Please Please have left their big marks in the charts, stats, and tiktok videos. This is her 6th album and she's apparently being nominated for "best new artist" like i disagree with that so much but thats a topic for another day anyway previously Sabrina Carpenter wasn't this big of an artist. I really didn't like the 2 singles, Espresso is tonally bland production wise and thats sometimes ok but its just too repetitive. I'm still alright with it tho because in comparison Please Please Please is so annoying especially the chorus, the only redeeming part is the bridge. 
 - Anyway, with Short n' Sweet I was afraid that it would just be a collection of tiktok traps and short catchy hooks with commercial production but theres actually bridges in a lot of this song which speaks a lot. I also think that upbeat uplifting feel-good pop tracks desperately need a revamp and Short n' Sweet offers a lot of it and only like 2 ballads (of which they are the only tracks Antanoff produces lmao this guy jack antanoff IS A CRIME) which I'm a big fan of. However, a lot of these tracks are just so forgettable/plain and not worth revisiting. Maybe some of these tracks could use a feature or something. I do like the direction in some tracks like "Taste", "Good Graces", "Juno" but other than that there's not a single track in this album which standouts to me, they're all just either mid or solid. Because of that it's hard to give this album a high rating. Also unrelated but she sounds so much like Selena Gomez in "Taste" 
Rating = 6/10
Favorite Tracks = "Taste", "Good Graces", "Juno"

8/23 = Delta Heavy - Midnight Forever
 - Drum&Bass duo Delta Heavy have came out with a 15-track album Midnight Forever featuring some really crafty drum&bass drops with catchy vocals and hooks. Despite the album being structurally monotonic throughout the tracks, this is some really good quality drum&bass for sure. I just love all the drops and progressions that support the vocal loops, and also "Hayley May" absolutely kills it on her two tracks, her vocals are so fitting. 
Rating = 7/10
Favorite Tracks = "Get Down Tonight", "E-N-D", 

8/30 = Zedd - Telos
 - A gigantic figure in the EDM community: Zedd, has announced and released his 3rd studio album after 9 years. This record features a turn in direction, collaborating with producers and vocalists from all sorts of niches from Irish folk to bedroom pop to rock to JOHN MAYER to grey. With this comes a lack of stability within the album naturally, however I love how Zedd still tries to paint a dystopia-like dark soundscape reminiscent of JVNA and hints of REZZ. Each collaboration has their own distinct identity and experimentation ideas whilst contributing to what I believe is a healthy cohesion of a record in Telos. Just listening to the album in order crossfaded, the transitions are honestly sensational with the foreshadowing and setups. Just adds to the cohesiveness of this album. 
 - Production wise, we turn to "Descensus (feat. Dora Jar)" which is just a master piece. It's like a new mature Zedd sound in which we can still feel the nostalgia to but it's just so mature with the sampling and drop sections and fills it's sensational. What a standout track that I can point to when I think of Telos. And then all around the synths are so clean and characteristic and authentic to the Zedd sound design, like the funk elements in "Tangerine Rays", "and "Lucky" which Ellis helped produce. However we did see Zedd reinvent some components and with that one thinks of jsut the prevalence of strings everywhere. I've always LOVED EDM strings, hence my devotion to "Mobile Orchestra" by Owl City which proves that orchestral production can be used to uplift upbeat electro house and not just intense drawn out fills. 
 - "Shanti" is also AN AMAZING collaboration between Grey and Zedd where Zedd kind of brings Grey's arabic chanting and production into a more mainstream light and ITS SO GOOD. I remember I was listening to this track while working and I instantly knew it was the Grey collab. I just had so many great impressions from this album, even with some tracks that I won't visit much like "No Gravity" and "Sona" that still provide some great variance that others may enjoy. 
Rating = 9/10
Favorite Tracks = "Descensus", "Shanti", "Tangerine Rays", "1685", "Automatic Yes", "Out of Time", "Lucky"


BONUS ALBUM (that i forgot to review from July):

7/12 = salute - TRUE MAGIC
 - A great blending of garage and house elements creating en emerging genre I like to refer to as "bright house". The tempo and loops have taken on the mainstream stage lately. I really appreciated "maybe it's u" with Sam Gellaitry along with "saving flowers" with Rina Sawayama. The other 12 tracks also have great moments and elements and chops but not enough for me to really revisit. I bet other people enjoy this genre and array of sounds more than me!
Rating = 6/10
Favorite Tracks = "maybe it's u", "saving flowers", "lift off!"

Conclusion

Personally the month of August was quite difficult to follow because Im in china for the last 2 weeks of this month and although it is clutch my sim card is connected to Hong Kong, I only have 12 gb of data so I don't watch any YouTube, therefore during the trip the only new releases I listen to are from Spotify's Release Radar. Otherwise I get a lot of releases from Bowtied Media's youtube channel and scrolling thru his discord server too, along with going to Monstercat's youtube channel. NCS is also pushing their ncs13 anniversary and i cant follow it too well though there exists spotify playlists, but u know what i mean.

Let's talk about the music this month. We had "Ocean" by Trivecta that was a very similar progression to previous single "Alaska" but he ended off this month with a double-headed single that absolutely blew my mind. "Watch The Stars" was narration-drive EDM similar to INZO or Convexity's discography with the skrillex-reggae bass drops and electric shredding sections and I never expected this shift in direction and experimentation for Trivecta's upcoming album. Love the guitar work and I need more of that, it's literally sensational when Trivecta incorporates it well. With the upcoming album I thought it was all going to be the same type of progression and melodic soundscape all around but with this track and high-energy explosive INZO-reminiscent "Leave the Light On" I'm definitely super excited to hear the rest of this album when it comes out as it's proving to be more cohesive than anticipated.

There's also that huge Zedd album which was WAYY better than I anticipated. And the ISOKNOCK and Delta Heavy album that produced some really nice tracks. This month had a RECORD-BREAKING 11 FIRE TRACKS and there were a lot that were borderline too but I had to cut it. Really great music this month. Skybreak killed it as always and Netrum's "Always Be" was my top single this month, it's a really versatile track. 

Updated Rankings

As of the end of July, here were the top 10 tracks of the year:
    1. Teminite - Yours [March]
    2. Skybreak, Sharks & LÚTHIEN - Out of Frame [May]
    3. Skybreak & Keepsake - Comet [May]
    4. YOUNG MIKO || BZRP Music Sessions #58 [Jan]
    5. Porter Robinson - Is There Really No Happiness? [July]
    6. Zedd, Mesto - Descensus (feat. Dora Jar) [August]
    7. Vylet Pony - Facing Oblivion to Become the Lode Star [July]
    8. Netrum - Always Be [August]
    9. Taylor Swift - I Can Do It With a Broken Heart [April]
    10. Derpcat, Psyuri - Bloom [May]
    Note that the I only discovered "Bloom" in August though it was released in May. What an insane melodic dubstep track but the thing that takes it to the top is the vocals, which are just so gentle, beautiful, unique, and freeing. What a vocalist and what an incredible second verse to literally give the keys to Psyuri for such a freeing verse with rather unconventional rhythmic design. Now this track will probably be dropped down next month because the high you get from discovering htis song for the first time just skyrockets this track like crazy. I put it at #10 to be generous but I was about to put it at the #8 spot lmao. 

    Descensus is a SENSATIONAL track with just the most insane blending of samples, vocals, chords, strings, fills, and synth pads. One of Zedd's best works it's so good it literally like resembles Telos TO ITS CORE. Amazing. 

    Now I'm not sure about the "Always Be" inclusion, it's such a versatile track with a catchy verse but there's nothing flashy about it, it's just a perfect track with great replay value, that's why I put it there. 

    Top 5 albums as of end of July:
    1. 7/11 = Girls Who Are Wizards - Vylet Pony
    2. 7/26 = Smile :D - Porter Robinson
    3. 4/12 = Mechanomorphic - Mr. Bill
    4. 4/19 = The Third Kind - Dyatic
    5. 4/5 = Wireframe - Paper Skies
    Now updated:
    1. 7/11 = Girls Who Are Wizards - Vylet Pony
    2. 7/26 = Smile :D - Porter Robinson
    3. 8/30 = Telos - Zedd
    4. 4/12 = Mechanomorphic - Mr. Bill
    5. 4/19 = The Third Kind - Dyatic
    Now visualized:


    And that finally concludes the August edition of new EDM! A huge weight off my shoulder. Lot's of new music from Trivecta, Virtual Riot, Fred again, and more later this year to be excited about.

    Lyric(s) of the Post: 


    Zedd, Mesto - Descensus (feat. Dora Jar)

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