Tropical House (steel drum synths, sax, "syncopated" beats and old school acapellas?)

like i know ronnie & renzo were hot 5 years ago but that vibe seems to have permeated and lingered... anyway offtopic

The tracks Moka posted are cool but they don't fit my idea of tropical house - too housey, not tropically enough. To me it seems genre is defined by slight "carribean-style" syncopation and synth-effects and the melancholy beach vibe Tim F mentioned.

Is the mix that Siegbran posted representative?

eh not really. The borders of this are of course very porous so you see a lot of mixes with slight tropical house vibes interspersed within a more amorphous "chill house" / "deep house" setting.

Still think Matoma (who's something of a tropical house purist) is the best starting point.

This 17 minute mix of his own tunes he did is kinda hilarious, albeit jarring;

https://soundcloud.com/matoma-official/one-year-one-love

Thomas Jack also has a 'Tropical House' DJ mix series featuring a lot of the key players but, again, most of the practitioners are a bit too subtle to play like an entire hour of tropical in a row (which is a shame almost, the thing that really struck me in Bali is how the more of the same style that's playing the more involving it is).

One way to think about this style is if Afrojack circa 2010 had "gone balearic". Anything that's actually balearic/deep is perhaps a bit too nuanced/tasteful to capture it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-QR5_58xPk

this music gives me bad feelings

it will make you renounce everything you believed in

ha well i didn't mean Iasos.

stay away from Iasos, i repeat, stay away from Iasos!

this stuff is so hit or miss!! help me find more hits

also i suspect justin timberlake's single moving this direction is indicative of where the market is moving generally

― mods = chickenshit idiots (D-40), Saturday, August 29, 2015 9:47 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i meant bieber, lol

this is my favorite of the (non rap) examples bc it violates all rules of tastefulness & is still a banger imho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RCx712GKqU

haha, "John Mayer - Free Fallin' (Matoma & Nelsaan Tropical Mojito Remix)" - truly you can't make this stuff up...

cool song!

I feel like this stuff was engineered and optimized just for Spotify playlists - Ultimate Chill Out Beach Party, Summer Vibes Relax.

Matoma is just some kind of sunset vibe mining algorithm, right?

So pleased you're on board with Matoma, Miko!

Tim F & i were talking about exactly that re spotify lifestyle playlists

lol played a lot of this stuff around pool parties where people were smoking a lot of w33d. they seemed to think it was OTM

its crazy how bad the main purveyors of this sound are at djing it... i tried the kygo and felix jaehn mixes w/ thomas jack on soundcloud and i had to turn them off w/in two songs

total wet blanket house

the next step of course is 8 min long instrumental versions of afropop records obv

ooh gimme that

I wasn't really feeling that Matoma mix although it had its moments. This thread title piqued my interest because it got close to my long-held non-existent fantasy genre that melds the syncopated, socafied end of post-UK funky dance music with the bouncier end of nu-Balearic, but then there's quite a bit of afropop tilting in that direction right now as it is.

i like that this stuff is sort of tasteless but i also don't

none of the matoma remixes touch classixx/shwayze edit to me

I wasn't really feeling that Matoma mix although it had its moments. This thread title piqued my interest because it got close to my long-held non-existent fantasy genre that melds the syncopated, socafied end of post-UK funky dance music with the bouncier end of nu-Balearic, but then there's quite a bit of afropop tilting in that direction right now as it is.

― Matt DC, Monday, September 14, 2015 1:51 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

its def just a strain of the broader technical genre of 'tropical house' that's worth listening to & fantasy genre is totally a part of its appeal...tim's right that matoma as a central figure makes better sense than anyone else, but even w/ him there's a few records which just don't work (any eminem remixes for example)...you def have to dig through crap to find the worthwhile shit but as DJ tools the best stuff is great as a kind of genre nexus imo

the matoma mix is just a bunch of his own remixes lined up right? that's obv not the idea way to experience this stuff ... I'm more seeing these as DJ tools where individual songs work & some don't but they're not afraid of incorporating rap which has been an issue w/ balearic zone of fruitless disintegration since the mid 00s revival

what is fruitless disintegration

if only coyote records had rapping on them

what is fruitless disintegration

― the late great, Monday, September 14, 2015 2:11 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

an attempt to joke on 'fruitless intensification' but more implying castles made of sand falling in the sea eventually due to diminishing audience interest the further you go into the nu balearic essence

total wet blanket house

Not to be confused with Toadal Wet Sprocket House.

as jordan noted on uk dance thread this song has a great & shameless tropical vibe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozx898ADTxM

GAH STOP WITH THAT SONG IT IS THE WORST

haha it's certainly the popularest, #1 in uk last week?

even though it's a bit fast&hard/housey compared to other t house tracks, it has a lot of core elements imo - throwback acapella, naive aesthetics, steel drum synth breakdown, joyous melancholy

it is distilled shit

the logical shit endpoint of the already shit "wish you were mine" by philip george

Don't see that at all - "wish you were min" has a kind of minor key piano riff that's much more late 90s techno (I think?), no tropical vibe

they both xploit 70s acapella's though (but the MJ one is so much better than the weirdly pitched Stevie one)

that's what i mean by "logical" - the sigala track is angled specifically to capitalize on summer 2015. i just don't see any creativity, originality, bangin-ness or guilty pleasureness here at all.

well, I guess it is kind of vapid - and not sure I'm a fan

but I thought it worth posting since it's a smash belonging in this thread, in that respect completely agree it's "logical"

ha ok fair enuff :)

hehe... also I guess it kind of follows the workings of tropical house industry - from what I gather this started out as an amateur Soundcloud post

i agree with j0rdan on this one

http://gawker.com/is-disclosure-a-victim-of-its-own-good-taste-1733745303

I don't.

Haha, that review was great

Mind you, normally I'm on board with arguments that things with taste are bad and tasteless things are good.

Nice one J0rdan.

I had forgotten about that Ed Sheeran track.

tasteful/-less really isn't an indicator of value either way

Love that review, J0rdan.

I remember this argument about tasteful dance music when Everything But the Girl started experimenting with drums 'n' bass and house.

My biggest problem with Caracal is that it sounds all too reminiscent of "Latch," not that it's too tasteful.

ty guys