It’s highly unlikely to have its own Beatport tag or to to be celebrated in Ibiza’s spurious DJ Awards - but one of my favourite genres of dance music is that of ridiculous noise with a beat.

You know what I mean; those songs where the producer has hit on such a magical noise that all they have to do is manipulate it over a beat and magic appears. Sometimes they are bass noises, often they mimic animals and sometimes they are just plain bizarre sounds.

It was Sully’s recent single Chatter that brought it to mind: in it, the Norwich producer uses his production magic to mimic a load of bird noises, under which he slams a drum & bass beat. Lovely.

Obviously, I couldn’t just leave it there though. So here is my guide to what I am calling boom-chick-wobble, aka 10 of the best dance music songs built around thoroughly ridiculous noises. 

VERY IMPORTANT: Please let me know your favourites below.

Pepe Bradock - Rhapsody in Pain (live)

Yes, you could probably have guessed that Pepe Bradock would be in there - but Rhapsody in Pain (live - allegedly) is a grotesquely bizarre song even for him, made up of a simple ticking rhythm, a sweetly understated melody and what sounds like someone getting their leg sawed off, howls of pain VERY MUCH included. Has any DJ ever played this? Would anyone dare? The results don’t bear thinking about.

Joy Orbison - Flight FM

Sometimes your boom-chick-wobble gets you expelled from the dance floor; sometimes it soundtracks a Chelsea shirt reveal. Well I don’t make the rules.

But, yes, the latter is precisely what happened to Joy Orbison with his 2024 track Flight FM, a song he put together while waiting for a lift to the Lost Village Festival and which sounds, in the best possible way, like a song put together while waiting for a lift to the Lost Village Festival, as the producer strikes ridiculous gold with a descending bass growl and realises that’s more than enough to make one of the biggest tracks of his life. Super-smart idiotic joy. 

Kris Menace - Scaler

But why go down when you can go up and up? And up and up and up and up in a seemingly infinite manner until all around you have entirely lost their minds?

This is what Kris Menace did on his 2009 track Scaler, using a Shepard tone - essentially superimposed sine waves that create the illusion of a tone that seems to continuously rise into the infinite - to send dance floors and home listeners alike absolutely bat shit crazy. And having done that, he added a bit of a bass drum and basically let things be, knowing that anything else would only get in the way. I’ve actually never heard a DJ play this. But I suspect the result would be pandemonium.

Winx - Don’t Laugh (Original Live Raw Mix)

What, you may ask, is so weird about the sound of someone laughing? Well, nothing really, until you plonk it front and centre of one of the biggest underground techno tunes of 1995 and end up with a top 30 hit in Germany.

Don’t Laugh, which made Josh Wink’s name around the world, is absolutely infuriating, largely because you didn’t think of making it first. It turns out a slightly sinister guffaw sounds absolutely perfect in the midst of a minimal techno beat, so much so that you can basically put your feet up and leave it to get on with things. Ultimately, Don’t Laugh is the kind of song your parents warned you about.

AFX - Elephant Song

Aphex Twin could have featured several times on this list - Digeridoo, for example, is a definite contender - as could Christian Martin’s Elephant Fight. But why not kill two birds with one stone and include a 1994 Aphex Twin song that basically sounds like he is torturing an elephant over a growling industrial beat? You know Aphex was particularly into his elephant sound, too, as he basically just leaves it to play over the song’s six-minute run time.

Coki - Spongebob

A lot of the greatest dubstep songs are built around obnoxious bass-line wobble. But few - if any - producers have ever bettered Coki’s 2007 classic Spongebob, a song that centres around a bass line so utterly, brilliantly dumb that Coki knew he could pretty much leave it there.

Rumours at the time had it that the Spongebob bass line - a kind of metallic jellified lurch, both wobbly and razor sharp - sampled the laughter of the titular character. It didn’t - Coki’s son was watching Spongebob when he made the track and the producer says it subliminally crept in - but even if it did that would only be about the fifth most ridiculous thing about this game-changing track.

Kill the Noise and Dillon Francis - Dolphin on Wheels

Another straight from the school of why-didn’t-I-think-of-it-first?: Kill The Noise and Dillon Francis’s 2015 track Dolphin On Wheels. Does it verge too far into EDM? Yes. Is it perilously close to a novelty hit? Definitely. But there is absolutely no denying that the stuttering squeaks of dolphin chat make for a brilliant riff in a dance song and I am prepared to bet that Kill The Noise and Dillon Francis laughed themselves all the way to the bank.

Rotterdam Termination Source - Poing 

I’ve written about this one before but Maurice Steenbergen and Danny Scholte’s 1992 gabber classic is a pioneer of the boom-chick-wobble sound, so minimal that it doesn’t even really bother with the hi-hat “chick”, instead sticking a pounding kick drum under a beautifully springy “poing” sound and riding the results to the top of the Dutch charts. Sorcery! 

Eomac - Spoock

Some of the songs here are funny; some are harsh; some are uplifting and some - like this 2013 banger from Eomac - are downright terrifying. Imagine, if you will, a distorted, detuned synth riff, like death with its batteries running out, left to charge around the sound field for seven horrifying minutes with only a bass drum and occasional shaker to try to bring order, a task in which they singularly fail. That’s Spoock, the precise moment you realise you wish you hadn’t watched this horror film alone, captured on vinyl.

Chiapet - Tick Tock (War Of The Worlds Mix)

I don’t know if you’ve ever had the dubious pleasure of living somewhere that had helicopters circling overhead for hours on end  - for me it was was Barcelona circa the 2017 Catalan independence referendum - but it is a singular mix of being EXTREMELY annoying and incredibly unsettling. 

So why, then, is the War of the Worlds mix of Tick Tock by Chiapet (aka usually very melodious house producer John Ciafone) so utterly captivating, given that it basically sticks the noise of a helicopter over a floor-quaking house beat for 10 thrilling minutes? Perhaps the helicopter is the most dance music friendly form of transport - see Deep Blue’s The Helicopter Tune - perhaps it’s just magic. Who knows?

Some listening

Takuya Nakamura and Tim Reaper - Broken Jazz

This sparkling collaboration between Japanese jazz polymath Takuya Nakamur and Tim Reaper is about as broken as the Red Hot Chili Peppers are mysterious i.e. not a snail belly’s worth. Instead, it is fluid, luminescent, deep, comforting, danceable and lithe, the absolutely perfect play off between jazz piano, brushed drums, the comforting glow of bass and a scampering, darting, jungle break, somewhere between 4-Hero’s jazz chops and LTJ Bukem’s astral ambience. Faced between this and a word with the chaplain on my death bed, I know which direction I’m going in.

Shelley Parker - You Look So Beautiful When You Cry

You Look So Beautiful When You Cry, the opening track on Shelley Parker’s third album, is simultaneously atonal, terrifying, industrially challenged and funky as hell, like the very worst bits of your nightmares soundtracked by a DJ who you think is DJ Hype, only to get close enough to ask for a track ID and it turns out to be the terrifying bunny in Donnie Darko. Seriously, though, this song - and indeed the album as a whole - are lessons in how even the most extreme noise terror can be teased into very satisfying hooks, led by catchy sounds, rather than hooky melody.

OR - Nokik Messiah

For someone who never went away, it seems like an awfully long time since we’ve had a solo John Talabot record. So all hail the Barcelona messiah on his return (as OR) with the album Music For Empty Stadiums coming out on AD93 in October.

The album is, apparently, a pandemic-era attempt to figure out “What might the most euphoric possible variant of ambient sound like?” to which Nokik Messiah, the first song to be released, replies, simply: “Lorenzo Senni”. Because, yes, Nokik Messiah sounds a hell of a lot like the Italian producer’s pointilist trance but when was that ever a bad thing? (Barker is also often mentioned.)

Bel Cobain - Mind Iz a Dancer (IZCO remix)

You will believe a double bass can fly on this new remix of Bel Cobain’s Mind Iz a Dancer, which continues IZCO’s red-hot 2026 streak. Bel Cobain’s original song is a radiant late-night jazz slink, to which IZCO adds a broken-beat ish rhythm and tightens up all around it, losing none of the original’s smoky charm, even as the hips start to rotate.

miaw - Walmart

I have never experienced joy in a Walmart. Which only makes me wonder where the hell Danish duo miaw are getting all their brio from on this three-minute pop gem, a song that condenses shoegazing, breakbeats, rave and pure pop essence into a song that bursts through the speakers with joy. The middle eight is probably enough on its own to make you run off and join the circus, like sheer distilled summer feeling, just in time for autumn.

Gazella - Reflejo

Valencia’s greatest shoegazers have undergone serious change since we last enjoyed their ethereal company, with singer Raquel Palomino leaving and Irene Ricart coming in. Given how integral Palomino’s flamenco-inflected vocals and sheer musical power were to the band, this was a worry for a group who made one of my favourite records of albums of 2025 in Vías.

Reflejo, however, suggests that everything might just be OK. The echoing guitar lines suggest a Mediterranean Durutti Column (which is appropriate, given the origins of the actual Durruti Column); the drums have the anarchic scuttle of Tony Allen and the melody is pure shoegaze ennui - aka my favourite type of ennui.

Yvon Polibyus - Some Days I’ll Be There

I’ve been reading Douglas Stuart’s new book, John of John (see below), which is set on Harris, an Island in the Outer Hebrides that Stuart paints as jaw-droppingly beautiful, utterly remote and fundamentally melancholy. 

It is perhaps for this that I’ve become addicted to Some Days I’ll Be There by Mexican producer Yvon Polibyus AKA Sojo, nine minutes of totally pensive deep house that drifts groovily by on a base of disjointed harp picks and a vocal that sounds lifted from a particularly spooky English freak folk record. You could imagine blasting the songs from headphones on a particularly bracing autumn morning, as you look out to the bleak Scottish sea. 

And many thanks to reader Una Temporada En El Infierno for sending this song - and many more - to me.

Some reading

Douglas Stuart - John of John

Few writers are as skilled at portraying Scotland as Douglas Stuart, the author best known for his sparkling debut Shuggie Bain. I haven't lived in Scotland in almost 40 years and I have never been to Harris, the deeply Presbyterian island where Stuart’s new book John of John is set. And yet reading his elegant prose I can feel myself back under the bleak, repressive beauty of Scotland.

John of John is a story of two gay men, Cal and his father John, neither of whom is out to each other. It starts with the familiar territory of Cal returning home to Harris after the liberation of university and spirals out to explore themes such as masculinity, faith, family and the difficulty of communication, full of grey areas and very fallible characters. 

Cal is our hero but the supporting cast - even down to fairly minor characters - is incredibly well painted, each trapped in their own particular (but often interlinked) set of problems, fears and regrets. My only slight critique is the ending felt rushed - but this was, perhaps, more a sign of the electric pace at which I was drawn to the novel.

Things I’ve done

Etienne de Crécy & French Touch: The Story of Super Discount - Line Noise Files #1 

Join me on video as I dig deep into the history and legacy of Etienne de Crécy's 'Super Discount' to celebrate its 30th anniversary. Widely recognised as one of the most inspirational, graceful, and eccentric records of the French Touch movement, this iconic album helped shape 90s electronic music and French house.

This is a new thing for Line Noise - the Line Noise Files - so I hope you enjoy it. An do subscribe.

Line Noise podcast - µ-Ziq: The Making of IDM Classic Tango N’Vectif 

This week on the Line Noise podcast, we have a very special head to head featuring Mike Paradinas - aka µ-Ziq - and Frank Naughton - also aka µ-Ziq, in the early days. The interview is to celebrate the release of Tango N’Vectif (The Complete Sessions), a glorious re-edition of the debut µ-Ziq album, which was composed by both Paradinas and Naughton and released on Rephlex back in 1993. It’s their first ever joint interview! We talked about jazz funk, Blue Innocence, borrowing gear, their very oldest music, the best µ-Ziq album, Kingston upon Thames’ incredible electronic music scene in the early 90s, a little bit of Aphex and much much more. 

Agnes Obel - The Meaning of Flowers

I reviewed the new - gorgeously unsettling - Agnes Obel record for Pitchfork and I even got away with a Deep Forest reference. “For music that is so unashamedly beautiful, there is something distinctly unnerving about The Meaning of Flowers… “ Anyway, amazing record, do give it a try.

The playlists

I have two playlists: the newest and the bestest 2026, which has all the best new music from this year; and the newest and the bestest, which dates right back to 2021. Both are available on Apple Music And Spotify.

Apple Music: The newest and bestest 2026

Spotify: the newest and bestest 2026

Apple Music: The newest and the bestest

Spotify: The newest and the bestest