Friday Dance Music Guide: The Week's Best New Tracks From Rüfüs du Sol, Four Tet & Ellie Goulding, Anna Lunoe and more

This week in dance music: Paris 2024 Paralympics closing ceremony was a French electronic music extravaganza, we looked at why La Roux's 2009 electro-pop classic “Bulletproof” is back on the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart, Meow announced Wolf Houston Launch date and radio-influenced topic Richie Hawtin lamented how “the famous, most followed DJs in our scene failed” commenting on the closure of DJ's profit sharing platform Aslice and the Association For Electronic Music announced a new campaign for to help DJs gain more exposure and profit when their music is posted on social media by other artists.

Meanwhile, Michael Bibi gave a figuratively and literally big check to the hospital where he received cancer treatment through money raised from his comeback show, the World DanceSport Federation explained why Australian breakdancer Raygun is ranked No.1 in the world , the annual dance music convention IMS announced it's expanding to Dubai in November, Nocturnal Wonderland 2024 was canceled due to wildfires in Southern California, and Charli XCX and Troye Sivan released a remix of “Talk Talk.”

That's a lot – and there's more! These are the best new dance tracks of the week.

Rüfüs du Sol, “Break My Love”

Since emerging from his native Australia in the mid-2010s, Rüfüs du Sol has been the primary architect and arbiter of this line of dark, dark, deep house electrohouses that come to soundtrack Tulum-to. -Ibiza-to-Burning Man circuit. (In fact, their track “On My Knees” won the Best Dance/Electronic Grammy for this 2022.) The group's latest, “Break My Love,” is Rüfüs at his best, with the song delivering that features faint, hypnotic, high rise and rich atmosphere and comes with a video in which the guys show off their playful side by playing a trio of 70s secret agents planning a heist. (Wait for the twist at the end.)

Following two recent singles, “Break My Love” also comes with news that the group will be releasing their fifth studio album, Inhale/Exhaleon October 11, via their own Rose Avenue Records and Reprise. Before that, they'll be headlining San Francisco's Portola festival on September 28. KATIE BAIN

Four Tet & Ellie Goulding, “In My Dreams”

Ellie Goulding has been swimming in the deep end of the electronic world lately, with Calvin Harris' 2023 trance collaboration “Miracle” and her recent follow-up, “Free.” Always nimble, she now crosses over to the IDM side of things with “In My Dreams,” a collaboration with Four Tet. (Which follows his own 2020 single “Baby.”) The producer uses Goulding's voice to weave the production together, weaving it like silk through his own propulsive and dichotomous distorted beats and shimmering chimes.

The project, writes, appeared in late 2023, when “Ellie text[ed] me with some vocal notes for a song idea. Words and tunes she sang on her phone and asked me if I could use them to make something. She's told me in the past that she likes to send me vocals that I can just use as audio and turn into whatever I want (thus the track 'Bab'y' a few years ago). I found other sounds to go with it and made “In My Dreams”. He added some new vocal parts, but we ended up keeping the vocal note recordings as the main vocal. I guess the first shot is often the most magical.” “In My Dreams” is released via Four Tet's Text Records.

Anna Lunoe, “Pearl”

An international DJ, radio host, podcaster and producer with a discography dating back 12 years, Anna Lunoe's CV is so long it's hard to believe she's never released an album. In a way it's true, but not for much longer: The Sydney-based artist just announced her debut LP, Pearlout October 25th on NLV Records, the label from longtime friend Nina Las Vegas. Lunoe also shared their team track, made with frequent Bag Raiders collaborator Jack Glass. “Pearl” is dreamy and intense, rippling with bright synth arpeggios and a seductive vocal melody. Beneath this bouncy exterior, rave drums and strings add a layer of grit and urgency.

“For me,” says Lunoe, “the feeling in this song is about fighting for your spirit and your creative power in a world that's not really designed for us to hold. Sonically, this was an exercise in feeling and elucidating a feeling as opposed to making tunes online – it's more honest than I've allowed myself to show publicly in the past, but those few can hear the naughty bits. my demos, they know this Anna well.” — KRYSTAL RODRIGUEZ

Hayden James, We could be love

On his third album, We could be loveHayden James shows his continued prowess in combining soulful pop songs with club sounds. The deeply murky 'Patience', which explores the cautious nature of relationships, offers catharsis on its rolling top. “Imagine” is full of hope atop melodic techno and “All In” is love wrapped in warm piano house. The producer even goes straight to the clubs on “The Pleasure”, a ready-to-play tech house track on an Ibiza circuit, but the featured singers (Shells, Karen Harding, AR/CO and many more) help We could be love his soul. James kicks off a North American tour later this month. — KR

Floating Points, Cataract

From the 2019 album CrushFloating Points has followed inspiration across genres and media, from collaborating with the late saxophone legend Pharoah Sanders on an album to creating a ballet and an upcoming anime series. His new album, Cataractmarks a triumphant return to the track. A collection of unconventional club bangers, bursting with convulsive textures, shimmering melodies, synth freak-outs and gravelly drums. Standout track “Afflecks Palace” is a descent into chaos, weaving through radar-like cues, ghostly croons, acid accents and lively strings. As everything converges into a dense, tangled mass, a stutter-step leads to a vertiginous space scramble. — KR

Kaleena Zanders & Tchami, “Daddy Keeps Calling”

Ring, ring. Who's on the line? It's new dance diva Kaleena Zanders (with Tchami joining the trio) sharing a new single, “Daddy Keeps Calling.” The piano-house track brims with soulful energy, the gospel-choir harmonies, handclaps and instrumental chords covering a fitting soundtrack to Zanders' club celebration of communion: “Oh Lord, you're burning, don't save me until you i do i've had enough/ The red light pulled me in, losing control again on the floor.' 'Daddy Keeps Calling' is the pair's second collaboration following this year's 'Giving Me Life' and will appear on Zanders' recent release. Glorified EP, out October 18 via Helix Records.

“When I wrote the lyrics for 'Daddy Keeps Calling' with prolific singer, songwriter/producer/DJ Bright Lights, we knew it was a unique perspective on songs made for the dance floor,” Zanders writes. “In our minds we envisioned the dance floor as the dominant force in our lives that drives us to create dance music and the force that brings so many people together. That being said, in this case, playing a sensual role-playing game, Dad is the runway and the core that binds us all together.” — KR

branches FKA, “Eusexua”

Have you experienced wishful thinking? That's the question FKA twigs asked ahead of her new single 'Eusexua'. twigs, who coined the term, describes eusexua as “momentary transcendence” and “the pinnacle of human experience” – and the transcendental “Eusexua”. It's a romp that rises to the highest realms, with an expansive soundscape of trembling trance and sonorous piano keys building to an ecstatic crescendo. Twigs' vocals are as hauntingly angelic as ever, evoking a siren call in her pursuit of connection beyond this earthly plane. Co-produced with Koreless and Eartheater, “Eusexua” is the title track of her upcoming album. “I moved to Prague a few summers ago, fell in love with techno,” she told her fans via Discord. “The album is not techno, but the spirit is there.” — KR

WhoMadeWho, Kiss & Forget

Today Danish trio WhoMadeWho release their eighth (!) studio album, the promisingly titled Kiss & Forget. The projects open with “Saturday Pt. 1″ and “Saturday Pt. 2″, but it is not the first appetite and mood that these titles cause. Instead, single piano notes combine with strings and a distant synth creating a sense of distance and longing, mystery and depth. The two-minute-plus “Pt. 1” then opens to “Pt. 2”, in which a beat finally falls, with the guys – Tomas Høffding, Tomas Barfod and Jeppe Kjellberg – ringing and crashing drums and more strings and then hitting the sound that the older you get, the more you actually want them May your Saturdays be like. The rest of the 13-track album features collaborations with Ry X, Dutch titan Kölsch, Adriatique and Blue Hawaii. WhoMadeWho are playing a pair of US dates, in Boston and Los Angeles, later this month. — KB

Dan Ghenacia, “Rouge ou Noir”

Does anyone remember the laugh? Shake off all your sorrows, if only for three minutes and 16 seconds, with this ultimate party of a disco track from Parisian producer Dan Ghenacia. A spacey, synthy, sexy and just plain funky swirl, “Rouge ou Noir” was recorded at Los Angeles' Stratasonic, a private and state-of-the-art studio run by in-house producers and home to a luscious collection of vintage gear. and new technology, now open to serve both emerging and veteran artists. “Rouge ou Noir” is also the name of the EP this track comes from, with the bubbly “Chilly” serving as a slinky B-side. — KB