spent most of this week on label pages instead of the algorithm, and it changed what the week looked like. the stores said tech house, same as always. the labels said tel aviv, berlin and a toy tonics album nobody is talking about yet.

eight picks below, a track of the week that has been sitting in a soundcloud upload since the 15th, and the receipts on what it took to find them.

the drop

"Beat Goes On" by Adam Ten and Rafael · Maccabi House ✅ back together on maccabi house, tagged indie dance by the label itself, and it does not rush.

"Cherry" by Cody Currie · Toy Tonics ✅ a full album, beats and instruments and vocals all him. beatport files it as deep house, which undersells it.

"Chilling Effect" by Dead Horse Beats · Bastard Jazz ✅ he cites steely dan and vulfpeck on his own bandcamp and puts "feel and arrangement ahead of polish." the vinyl is not until september.

"You Don't Want To Think About It" by Oden & Fatzo and Noa Milee · Defected ✅ oden & fatzo doing the vocal thing on defected. if you know the good vibe juice list you already know why this is here.

"On The Dancefloor EP" by Josh Butler · PIV ✅ his first record for chris stussy's label. four cuts, one of them a dub, and "Final Round" clocks under three minutes.

"Of Sand EP" by Paul Valentin and Liv Lisa Fries · Feines Tier ✅ shimmering synths over breakbeats, and a DJ Koze remix that goes further into the breaks than the original does.

"Think Too Much EP" by Vintage Culture with rhys from the sticks and Nariman · AFFAIRS ✅ two extended cuts. the second one, "Guilty Pleasures," is him on his own.

"Sair Lazazel" by Yanki Fès · Disco Halal ⚠️ marked because it showed up on one store feed and nowhere else i could reach. good sign, thin paper trail. buyer beware and let me know if you find a second source.

track of the week

Adam Ten & Rafael · "Beat Goes On" on Maccabi House.

the label put it up on soundcloud on the 15th with "out july 24" in the title, and then it arrived exactly when they said. maccabi house describe it as the chemistry that has become a staple of the label's sound, which is label-speak, but in this case it is also accurate about what the pairing does.

worth knowing that beatport's own adam ten page did not list it at all when i checked. it turned up under rafael instead. the record is real, the metadata is just messy.

where the grooves are

Aug 1 · Dombresky + Walker & Royce · Mission Ballroom · a very bumpy-lane double bill Aug 15–16 · LCD Soundsystem · Red Rocks · two nights of indie dance church Oct 8 · Madeon · Mission Ballroom

denver first, always. the full map is on the radar, and every room in town is on the new venues guide.

the playlists

fresh grooves friday, the curated survivors, is split across three lists. 🧃 good vibe juice for daylight and driving. 🚧 bumpy for 1am. 📈 groovesmaxxing is the highlight reel, so it stays short on purpose.

the full drop is the unfiltered version, everything that came out this week in house, techno and indie dance. no curation, no filter, just the week as it actually was. it lives on the archive and gets replaced every friday.

one more thing

every pick above carries a ✅ or a ⚠️. ✅ means two independent stores agree, or the label said it themselves. ⚠️ means one source and i could not get a second. release dates in dance music are wrong often enough that somebody should be checking, so we do.

here is what this issue actually cost: 250 releases read across the store feeds, 14 label pages and 25 artist pages checked by hand, and eight survived. we listen to everything. you get the good stuff.

and next friday is already stacked: Solomun lands on Diynamic, a six-track Max Styler album hits Nu Moda, and Lee Foss has one coming on Repopulate Mars. issue 002 will have opinions.

save this one for the drive. that is the whole ask.

this issue lives at groovesmaxxing.github.io/friday.html too, and on instagram if that is where you live.

everywhere the grooves live instagram · youtube · soundcloud · bandcamp · the site 🧃 good vibe juice · 🚧 bumpy · 📈 groovesmaxxing 💎 contraband grooves for the stuff you cannot stream anywhere else

vibes + grooves, maxxed 📈