Compilations are a dicey a business to delve into: they can be uneven; they can be odd; they can misrepresent the artists that participate in them. The new Disrict Summer compilation assembled by D.C.’s Jake Komara, fortunately, doesn’t fall victim to either of these traps. Featuring a sensational array of artists that accurately exemplifies the current dance scene in our nation’s capital, Komara went out of his way to “capture what it’s like to get down in the District during the hot summer months.”
District Summer gushes flair and finesse allowing for each subsequent track to blend and sway with its own identity without overwhelming the whole. This is compounded with the understanding that the tracks are all unreleased music by some of D.C.’s crown jewels – and dance music rising stars – including edits by Julius Jetson, Will Eastman, Outputmessage, Seba Yuri, and Wave Age ensuring there are no stones looked over or unturned. And it’s almost as if Komara took it upon himself to layer the compilation as a taste test for what clubgoers could come to expect by venturing into the individual subcultures of D.C.’s club scene.
There are traces of Dupont’s hip, 20-something lounge atmosphere in Nacey‘s percussive “Tripping in Half-Moon Bay” and Thomas Blondet‘s “Last Week” while the U Street Corridor sound gets major love with Nick Garcia‘s indie dance slammer “Sun Jam,” Wave Age’s floating sampling in “Whispers,” and the tech house groove in Komara’s “Jingling.” The deeper cuts in the compilation, like Seba Yuri’s “Ethereality,” are fantastic at balancing out the pop and gives a glimpse into D.C.’s scene as the night wears on at parties like ROAM or the Dance Loft on 14th.
Of course, these tracks only scratch the surface as to what the beautiful dance music community in Washington has to offer, but it encapsulates – at least at a basic level – what the scene is capable of. It’s poppy. It goes deep. It gets spaced out. And it’s summer – what else could you want?
You can download the District Summer compilation here and stream it below.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/115164089″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]