Probably about a year ago, I was driving around with a friend listening to one of my Spotify "Discover Weekly" playlists, and a new song came on that caught my ear. Spotify usually does a really good job suggesting songs, but most of the time the songs on those suggestion-type playlists can sound the same. This song though, sounded different than all the others and had really upbeat and plucky feel to it. My friend and I instantly paid attention to it and really liked it. After that, we broke from the discover weekly playlist and listened to every other song that artist had on spotify. That artist was Rad Cat, and I believe the song that caught our attention was without u.
I started with this story because it describes the feeling of knowing how much you like a song the very first time you listen to it. Some songs in the jammies I needed to warm up to, specifically songs like Covers by Ramzoid. I had to go back and listen to it multiple times before I finally put it in the playlist.
Rad Cat and Vulpey have a similar style: they're both upbeat, and they have a dominant/distinct sound that somewhat acts as a vocal in a lot of their songs. I have a soft spot for that upbeat style, since so many of the songs that sparked my interest in electronic type music were very uppity and got ya movin'.
Both of these artists are also relatively new and haven't released that many original songs; Vulpey's oldest song is from 2015, and Rat Cat's is from 2017 (that are listed on Spotify). It's not like they're the only upbeat artists, but they just seem to do it in a different way that hasn't been explored before. And boy do I hope they both keep putting out new music.
What We Feel
The song that inspired this post originally was What We Feel by Vulpey. PLEASE go listen to this song right now as you continue reading.
It starts off with a mix of different sounds fading in and out, and you're not sure which ones are going to stay around and be main focus of the song, and which ones you may be hearing for the last time. There's a lot of mysterious background noises like coins bouncing around, cards shuffling, etc. The sounds start piecing themselves together, and then finally by 0:50 - 1:10, a kick and a clap comes in that seems to uncover the beat that was there the whole time, made out of these seemingly random sounds. This same beat picks up and gets a little more intense and loud, and you think this is what most of the song is going to be (which would still make for a pretty good song!). But then the beat calms right back down and introduces this beautiful synth sound that dances all over the place like a vocal would, basically walking you through this gorgeous world of miscellaneous sounds it just painted.
It starts to slow back down, then an actual but still distorted vocal comes in as that background beat cuts in and out. It does the same beat picking up thing, then fades out with a neat ringing sound.
This is definitely in my top 10 songs to listen to at max volume right now, especially because every time I listen to that beginning part I hear a different sound that I didn't know was there before.
Another one of Vulpey's songs, Halocline,
is also really special. It's harder to explain with words than What We
Feel, but has sounds that are just as wacky, and this neat whip sound
that introduces what I guess is you could call first drop around 1:06.
It also does this thing that I LOVE hearing in songs, where the second
drop completely changes the tempo/mood of the song, and it feels like
you're cheating the system and getting two songs for the time of one.
Both of these artists have a sound that is completely unique,
which makes them stand out in playlists like the jammies. All the
songs I talked about in this post exist in that playlist currently,
and will probably stay there for a good amount of time. Like I said
before, they are also both relatively new arists, and I can't wait to
see what they're (hopefully) going to come out with next.