The 10 Best Tracks Of April 2016

March might be the unofficial beginning of festival season, but things don't really set in until April. With any luck, the electronic music world has recovered from the hustle and bustle of Ultra Music Festival, and from that snapshot of industry leaders’ releases, the emerging trends of the year begin to take form. So far, however, the sounds of 2016 are proving as shapeless as ever. The main stage appears to finally be crumbling under its own weight, but nothing of substance has materialized in its stead as of yet. What will the next it-genre look like? Will it be the big room/bass house hybrid purveyed by so many Spinnin’ Records signees? Will it be the placid future bass dreamscapes pioneered by the likes of What So Not and Flume? Right now it’s anybody’s game, and the following April releases are but a few examples of emerging trends in the electronic music landscape. 10) Alesso - I Wanna Know ft. Nico and Vinz Alesso made a bold statement when he revealed “I Wanna Know” featuring Nico And Vinz as his first major single of 2016. Even though the Swedish DJ/producer’s music had begun to exhibit more of an instrumental leaning as far back as a year ago, the track left behind what grit his previous productions had in favor of an arrangement that basically sounded like a Jack Johnson song. “I Wanna Know” would come across as a betrayal of Alesso’s roots if not for its skillful execution. Even though it’s different from anything else he’s put out, it just plain works - and it’ll probably be remembered as one of the stronger tracks of the season. 9) What So Not And Ganz - Lone The long-awaited upcoming release of Flume’s Skin LP has kept the Australian DJ/producer’s name in the mouths of electronic music fans over the past several months. What a lot of his more recent following may take for granted, however, is that he got started as one half of the duo What So Not - and what his former counterpart is releasing under that name is competitive to say the least. In his collaboration with Dutch hip-hop/bass music producer GANZ, What So Not blends the former artist’s signature melodies into his downtempo/future bass style in such a way that you almost can’t imagine the two styles ever having been mutually exclusive. 8) 3LAU - Is It Love Remember that shapeless sound we talked about? 3LAU’s “Is It Love” is the epitome of that style, and you’ll probably see a lot more like it this festival season. It’s not progressive house, but it’s not future house or straight-up pop music, either. This is a grey area that electronic music fans are getting a lot more used to nowadays, and it’s no stretch to suggest that whatever new style becomes the status quo will likely sound something like this. For what it’s worth, that’s not entirely a bad thing, either. For our money, “Is It Love” is a lot more tolerable than big room house ever was. 7) RL Grime - Aurora Even bass music is seeing a trend in favor of softer styles this festival season. RL Grime’s particular brand of trap music already bore the hallmarks of outside-the-box artistry through and through, but “Aurora” is the type of track that you could imagine spawning its own genre. Ambient synth melodies meet pitch-shifted vocal cuts to yield a composition with almost unrivaled depth of concept. When you put it up against what RL Grime was releasing around this time last year, it’s apparent that he channeled some new and exciting influences during the creative process for “Aurora” - and it’s exciting to speculate as to what his upcoming releases will sound like in the next few months. 6) Kaskade And deadmau5 - Beneath With Me V.3 Kaskade and deadmau5 have been responsible for some of electronic music’s most celebrated collaborations as far back as eight years ago when they released “I Remember.” The progressive house icons with polar-opposite public personas clearly haven’t lost their touch, as the third version of their year-in-the-making track, “Beneath With Me,” mixes influences at the dance music forefront in a way that doesn’t come across as forced. 5) Dusky - Ingrid Is A Hybrid Add London-based tech house duo Dusky to the list of artists who have succeeded in stepping outside of their creative comfort zone while still managing to turn out music worth listening to. In a subset of the dance music community in which putting out anything other than four-on-the-floor heaters is practically on par with sacrilege, somehow it’s hard to hate on what they’ve turned out for “Ingrid Is A Hybrid.” If the track is any indicator of what’s to come from the remainder of Dusky’s upcoming album, Outer, synth-heavy breakbeats are not to be ruled out on any of the productions. 4) Lane 8 - Fingerprint As much as their cult following has grown over the past couple of years, underground house and techno haven’t fallen out of the electronic music elite’s favor quite yet - and Lane 8’s “Fingerprint” is exactly the sort of track capable of catching the undercurrent. A simple yet driving synth melody is underscored by a reverberant bass line in the seemingly eternal buildup of “Fingerprint.” In a manner that only a house music mastermind could pull off, Lane 8 reinforces each aural peak with seemingly arbitrary incidentals that contribute to the overall ambience of the arrangement. 3) Party Favor - Bust ‘Em Trap music has still got some mileage left, especially when it draws influence from a genre as versatile as breaks. You may not think of Party Favor as a purveyor of the latter style, but “Bust ‘Em” proves him capable of incorporating it into his repertoire. The beginning of the track sounds enough like by-the-numbers trap music, but an unmistakeable syncopation at the first drop places it firmly in breakbeat territory. For its lurid topic matter and lighthearted tone, the layperson might not think of “Bust ‘Em” as any sort of game changer - but if you’re the type to pay attention to more finite musical details, you’ll recognize that there’s more going on conceptually than in a typical festival banger. 2) Kygo - I’m In Love In 2016, even electronic music’s softer styles are due for a face lift. Kygo made a name for himself as the poster child of the polarizing tropical house style years ago, but as more and more songs trickle out from his upcoming album, Cloud Nine, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that he’d prefer not to let his past define him. Between soulful vocals, rich instrumentals and a composition that you could hardly lump into any single category - let alone one of electronic music’s ever-specific confines - "I'm In Love" is another excellent effort from the producer and has us extremely excited to hear more from him. 1) BLR - Nungwi BLR’s “Nungwi” is more than just a kind of interesting deep house track. When you take into account that it’s the first release on Tiësto’s new deep house imprint, AFTR:HRS, it’s a true sign of how the lines have blurred between mainstream and underground. In spite of sound design elements that call forth mental images of a spiritually enlightened echelon of music aficionados dancing on the playa, a closer look at “Nungwi” reveals that its song structure better resembles the abrupt ebbs and flows characteristic of the big room anthems for which Tiësto is better known. What this means for the future of deep house is unclear, but it makes for an interesting case study of what happens when the two worlds collide.