It’s safe to assume that sunny aesthetics are here to stay in dance music. As artists like Sam Feldt and Robin Schulz continue to pave the way on Top 40 radio, shifting the dance music game away from big room, electro, and trap, the sax-mellow guitar trend is becoming more and more noticeable as frat brothers begin trading in their tribal pattern tank tops for Hawaiian shirts.
But while this particular subgenre of dance furthers its reach, there are some producers who are keeping it rootsy and tropical without going full on pop. Nicolas Haelg‘s recent original, “Mind Games,” is tropical, sweet, summery, pleasurable, but it never strays into the cliché territory of slammers like “Prayer in C.” This is due in part mostly to the choice of vocals for the track: Haelg forgoes ambient or sultry and instead ventures into gospel which gives the track an energetic lift and more of a house feel than the countless other tropical tracks which have debuted in the last few months (“Show Me Love,” as gorgeous as it is, still comes to mind). Combined with a bass that slaps harder than the sound of a fat man belly-flopping into a swimming pool, the track as a whole is proper house with elements of island vibes; this is not the kind of tropical house that’ll give you sunburn just from listening.
Listen to Nicolas Haelg’s “Mind Games” below and pick it up for a free download.
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