The best new dance tracks of the week

This week in dance music: An all-star collection of French electronic artists including Jean-Michel Jarre, Breakbot, Busy P and Alan Braxe were announced as performers for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games closing ceremony; Chase & Status’ Stormzy collaboration “Backbone” continues its run at the top of the UK Official Singles Chart; we spoke to The Blessed Madonna about her upcoming album and her ambition to be “a little piece of glass in the foot of the industry”; Charli XCX announced a new project; artists including Tokimonsta and Louie Vega offered free music in exchange for participation in democracy; we spoke to producer Clams Casino; Clean Bandit & Zara Larsson’s “Symphony” reached No. 1 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50; ADE 2024 expanded its programme; and we spoke to the CEO of Burning Man, which is happening this week, about the more than 100 other official Burning Man events taking place around the world.

And of course there’s the music. Here are the best new dance projects of the week.

Zedd, Telos

There’s a barrage of different styles and influences on Zedd’s new album, Telosbut on each of the 10 tracks you can hear the great ambition that lies within the project, and also the realization of his lofty aspirations. The long-awaited follow-up to the producer’s 2015 sophomore album, True colors — which along with his debut in 2012 Brightness made him a wunderkind of the EDM era, with a special dexterity for that genre’s pop impulses that earned him a string of hits on the Hot 100 — Telos finds the artist born Anton Zaslavski flexing his musical muscles. The project showcases his classical training and good taste in productions that encompass classical, jazz, cinematic maximalism, Middle Eastern sounds, and electronic party music that nods to the EDM roots of Zaslavski’s career but evolves his sound into a refined, nuanced (but hey, still danceable) place.

The album features an all-star collection of collaborators, including Bea Miller, who appears on both the lead single, “Out of Time” and the catchy, punchy “Tangerine Rays”; John Mayer, who brings his uniquely laidback cool to the jazz fusion-influenced “Automatic Yes”; stadium-rock stars Muse, who lend operatic grandeur to the closing, spiritual “Epos”; and even Jeff Buckley, who reinterprets Zaslavski with style and grace on his version of the late artist’s 1994 “Dream Brother,” which leans into Radiohead territory without being reductive and hits hard with his string-drenched drops. All in all, Telos simply doesn’t sound like anything else produced recently in the electronic world, or perhaps even beyond.

But the artist explains the guiding principles best here, with Zaslavski saying that the Greek word “telos” has multiple meanings, one of which is “achievement” or “completion of human art. I’ve always dreamed of making an album that, 30 years from now, I can look back on and be incredibly proud of. That will be just as great then as it is now, because it’s not based on trends or sound design that might fail — it’s based on music, just like the albums that shaped me growing up and that I still adore to this day. With TelosI created something I didn’t think I could do – it just took some time to get there.”

Zedd will soon perform the album live with a fall tour of North America, featuring performances at LA State Historic Park, the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium and Red Rocks Amphitheatre.

Tycho, Infinite health

Few producers capture the heady, sun-drenched psychedelia of NorCal better than Tycho, who takes us back to the coast and the redwoods on his seventh studio album. Infinite healthThe project is classic Tycho, with tracks that are clean yet emotional and refined, yet get the blood pumping, simultaneously capturing clarity and melancholy through often hazy, lo-fi IDM that contains thematic multiplicity.

“’Green’ and ‘Devices’ represent the conceptual bookends of the…album,” writes artist Scott Hansen. “’Green’ is an elegy to my childhood home, a once-rural town on the outskirts of Sacramento where I spent my youth and forged a deep connection to nature. ‘Devices’ represents the struggle to stay connected to nature and our own humanity in the modern world. I wanted to illustrate this tension with a set of sonically contrasting songs.” The album is out on Mom + Pop Records in the US and Ninja Tune worldwide, and the 27-date Infinite health Hansen’s tour will take him through North America this fall.

Swedish House Mafia & Alicia Keys, “Finally”

After years of incorporating their reworking of the Kings of Tomorrow classic into their sets, it follows that Swedish House Mafia have now completely overhauled the 2001 house anthem, bringing in none other than Alicia Keys for vocals and swapping the original’s hard-thumping bassline, hi-hat and warm keyboards for a much bigger and more urgent swirl of strings. The track expands on the XXL house vibe of their 2022 album Paradise againand nods to that album’s ambition to focus more on the genre that influenced the trio so much that they even named themselves after it.

Jon Hopkins, “part ii – palace/illusion“

After his 2021 album Music for psychedelic therapy (the intention of which was in the title), English maestro Jon Hopkins returns with an album so deep and soothing that it could very well be used for the same purpose. “Designed,” says Hopkins, “to reconnect you with the deepest part of yourself,” Ritual is subtle, deep and often profound, with the project first coming to life in 2022 when Hopkins was commissioned to work on an immersive experience, Dreammachine, capturing the ethereal sonic and visual aesthetic for the eight-track RitualThe album is out now on Domino Records.

Caribou, “Come Find Me”

Other DJs may party harder, but does anyone have more fun than Caribou? The artist brings the playfulness that’s always defined the Canadian artist’s visual aesthetic to the video for his latest, “Come Find Me,” which sees a dancer in a tracksuit and an oversized Snaith mask dancing alone in settings that include a bus, a city sidewalk, and an open field. (Look for a cameo from Snaith himself near the end.) The track itself is warm, slow-building IDM — in other words, classic Caribou — and comes from the artist’s sixth studio album, Honeywill be released on October 4th on Merge Records.

Andy C & Becky Hill, “Indestructible”

As drum ‘n’ bass continues to expand its position in the UK charts, two of the genre’s leading players come together for the predictably banging “Indestructible”, which officially releases today on Astralwerks but dates back almost a decade, when Andy C first included an early version in his sets. With Hill possessing one of the genre’s defining voices and Andy C being one of its architects, the result is an extremely powerful meeting of the minds, with Hill’s lyrics referencing the success of the genre itself.

“’How did we get here, look how far we’ve come,’ says it all,” says Andy C. “It sums up my relationship with DnB, how popular the genre is now and how big Becky’s career is. It’s just so magical.”