The NeedlExchange, a collective who has grown incredibly popular in the gay, underground disco and house circles both in the District and abroad, continuously reminds our local scene of where dance music came from, where it is now, and where it’s going. TNX mainstays Baronhawk and Bil Todd (under the alias ‘AnA’) consistently present their truth to us every time they get behind the decks: choosing positivity over narrow-mindedness, wise curation over playing out heat-seeking records, and paying mind to showing beauty in an ordinary moment like spending a night in a club. This focus on the purity of dance music and its very colorful history is what gives their edit series, Bag Fries, such a refreshing sensibility.
“Mvula,” the latest in the Bag Fries series, is a declaration of being at peace with your inner self on the dancefloor. Baronhawk’s cut of “Mvula,” going tribal with layered kicks and chopped vocals, is crafted and packaged as a more sinister type of heat compared to the AnA cut. The AnA version, on the other hand, is a loungier edit that finds itself filling up headspace like water inside a ballon through the use of celestial pads and softer percussion choices. Both make phenomenal use of atmosphere to invite listeners into their soundscapes and they each play to some sort a genre from dance music’s past; Baronhawk’s version feels like aggressive club play while Todd’s goes the route of early 2000’s atmospheric electronica.
Both cuts are free on SoundCloud. You can catch both Bil Todd and Baronhawk, along with Tommy Cornelis, opening for Martyn and Honey Soundsystem this week at U Street Music Hall.
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