Banger Dispatch #007 — Saturday, May 23, 2026
29 captures
Dispatch seven lands with more range than any previous edition — and that's not a complaint. The core is still intact: Kasablanca and Township Rebellion doing exactly what you want them to do, Tinlicker and Matt Fax delivering from inside ABGT677, wrongside and Shiftbach holding the melodic techno line with precision. But surrounding that core is a dispatch that's been genuinely honest about what actually grabbed ears this cycle, regardless of genre loyalty. Kaskade and Layton Giordani making a melodic techno crossover that needed three listens to fully click. Cloonee and Groove Theory doing something that shouldn't work and absolutely does. Nicky Jam from 2014 landing on a FYP and earning its spot without apology. Josh Fawaz remixing Marvin Gaye into something that justifies the audacity. The stutter house corner keeps growing — Lavern's 2023 hold-up and Toby Romeo's floor-ready entry both making cases for a subgenre that this listener has quietly been adopting for a while now. ABGT677 was a particularly generous source this cycle, responsible for five separate tracks across the melodic progressive and trance-adjacent spectrum. The outliers — Breaking Rust's soul blues, the Nicky Jam deep cut, the playful body-horror comedy of 'My Knees, My Neck, My Back' — are not distractions from the taste map, they're honest readings of it. A dispatch that only plays the expected notes isn't a taste map, it's a press kit. This one's the real thing.
New Discoveries
Something on My Mind — deep dispatch
CLUB GROOVE
The vocals are doing exactly what they should — they're the hook and the anchor, riding a groove that builds with enough patience to feel earned rather than rushed. The drop lands clean without overstaying its welcome, and that's a harder balance to strike than most producers make it look. This is exactly the kind of track that makes a four-hour coding session feel like forty-five minutes.
deep dispatch operates in the deep house and melodic house lane, with a production sensibility that prioritizes vocal integration over spectacle. The May 2026 release is a standalone single, consistent with the artist's independent release strategy.
Meet Again — Kaskade, Layton Giordani, Natalie Jane
BANGER-LITE
Kaskade's builds are basically a controlled substance at this point — you know they're coming and they still get you every time. Layton Giordani brings the melodic techno credibility that keeps this from sliding into pure festival pop, and Natalie Jane's vocals have the kind of warmth that makes the sweeping sections actually land emotionally rather than just sonically. The drop is a grower, fair warning, but once it clicks it really clicks.
Layton Giordani has been steadily crossing over from his Brooklyn-rooted techno base into melodic crossover territory, and this collab with Kaskade — a stalwart of the Insomniac and progressive house world — signals real genre-blending ambition. Natalie Jane has been building momentum as a featured vocalist across the melodic electronic space. The May 2026 release continues Kaskade's late-career creative evolution beyond his Redux imprint comfort zone.
In My Arms — Toby Romeo, Loek, VisionV
CLUB GROOVE
The beat is the whole product here and it delivers — stutter house has this percussive immediacy that bypasses your brain entirely and goes straight to your feet, and Toby Romeo and Loek know exactly how to weaponize that. The lyrics are functional, not poetic, but on a dance floor nobody's parsing lines. This is a physical track, not an intellectual one, and it's completely unapologetic about it.
Toby Romeo has been a consistent presence in the European melodic house and future house circuit, with releases on major imprints and playlist support from DSP editorial teams. VisionV adds production depth to a track that leans into stutter house — a subgenre that has been gaining serious traction in club programming from Ibiza to Berlin. Caught via Instagram, which tracks with how stutter house tends to spread virally through short-form video.
Via Instagram · @tobyromeo
Meet Me In The Dark — AVE
HEATER
From the first four bars this one had its hooks in me — the synth backbeat has this infectious mechanical pulse that locks in immediately, and the vocals sit right in that sweet spot between sultry and danceable. It's earning both the coding session and the dance floor playlist spots simultaneously, which is a rare trick. Chair-dancing is not a choice, it's a consequence.
AVE is working in a bass house adjacent space that borrows from melodic techno's atmospheric toolkit — a combination that's proving commercially and critically durable in 2026. The May 2026 release is a standalone single, and the dual playlist placement (coding-session and dance-floor) reflects a production style that works equally well at low and high volume.
Loop - Remix — Jerri, Alok
FESTIVAL
Alok getting hold of a track is basically a guarantee it's going to be bigger, faster, and harder than the original — and this remix of Jerri's 'Loop' is exactly that, Brazilian bass energy pushed to festival scale with Alok's signature relentless momentum. The irony of a song called Loop being literally impossible to stop replaying is not lost on me. Your algorithm found something real here.
Alok is one of the most-streamed Brazilian electronic artists globally, and his remix work consistently amplifies tracks to international reach — slap house and Brazilian bass have been his home turf, but his crossover into electro house territory is deliberate and strategic. Jerri is a rising Brazilian electronic act, and this collab puts them in front of Alok's massive global fanbase. The Brazilian bass scene has been exporting aggressively to European festival circuits since 2023.
Via Instagram · @alok
My Knees, My Neck, My Back — Do Re Mi By AI, Madame Madame
INTRIGUING
Look, the title alone earns its place in any playlist built for humans with bodies that have opinions about movement. Whether this is a cheeky club banger or something with genuine compositional legs, the energy tag says INTRIGUING and honestly that's exactly right — it's the kind of track you describe to someone and they immediately need to hear it.
Do Re Mi By AI and Madame Madame are operating in a playful, genre-fluid space where the concept is as much the product as the music. The April 2026 release arrived via Instagram, fitting a trend of algorithmically native tracks designed to work as both audio and visual content. The title is a deliberate wink at Khia's 'My Neck, My Back' — leaning into cultural recognition as a hook.
Movin' To The Sun — HUGEL, Imael Angel, Ultra Naté
BANGER
HUGEL has been cooking in the Afro house and Latin house space long enough to know exactly how to build a track that works everywhere from the gym to the club to the patio, and this one nails all three. Ultra Naté is a genuine house music icon — her voice carries thirty years of dancefloor credibility and it shows. This one doesn't have a weak context.
Ultra Naté is best known for 'Free' (1997), a house anthem that has never really left rotation, making her presence here a genuine lineage connection rather than a nostalgia play. HUGEL has been building serious catalog momentum across Latin house and Afro house, with releases that consistently hit editorial playlists. Imael Angel brings Afrobeat and reggaeton crossover sensibility, pushing 'Movin' To The Sun' into techengue territory — a Latin-African hybrid genre with growing festival presence.
Via Instagram · @hugel_music
Travesuras — Nicky Jam
BANGER-ADJACENT
Sometimes the algorithm knows what you need before you do — and dropping a 2014 Nicky Jam reggaeton classic into a melodic house feed is genuinely chaotic and also completely correct. The beat on 'Travesuras' is one of those constructions that transcends genre loyalty: the rhythm just works on a cellular level. Deal with it is right. No apology required.
Nicky Jam was at the vanguard of the mid-2010s reggaeton explosion that brought the genre from Puerto Rican underground to global mainstream, and 'Travesuras' was a core track of that wave. Its appearance via Instagram Reels in 2025 reflects how TikTok and Reels have been resurface-streaming mid-decade Latin tracks to entirely new audiences. Nicky Jam went on to collaborate with J Balvin, Daddy Yankee, and appear at the 2018 FIFA World Cup closing ceremony — peak cultural moment for reggaeton.
Via Instagram · @nickyjam
Sexual Healing — Josh Fawaz
REPEAT FLAG
Marvin Gaye's original is untouchable, which makes remixing it either an act of courage or hubris — Josh Fawaz goes the courage route and fully earns it, wrapping that DNA in a house production that respects the source while making it completely his own. The exponential bangerism theory holds up under scrutiny. If you don't know Fawaz's catalog yet, this is an embarrassingly good entry point.
Josh Fawaz has been one of the more quietly consistent house producers working in the UK and European circuit, with a rework style that tends to find the groove in classic material rather than overwrite it. 'Sexual Healing' appears on the 'Dance Like Nobody's Watching' album (May 2026), suggesting a full project built around that same philosophy of danceable rework culture. The track landed a REPEAT FLAG designation — that's as strong a signal as this listener gives.
Let Me Be In Your Arms — Sonny Fodera, Libianca
FESTIVAL
Sonny Fodera and Libianca is a pairing that shouldn't work on paper — deep house production meeting Afrobeats vocal weight — and yet it absolutely does, because Libianca's voice has the kind of emotional range that adapts to any sonic context and makes it better. This isn't a banger, it's a grower, and the Spotify algorithm got it right for once. A DJ spinning this at the right moment in the right room is going to make someone's night.
Libianca broke through globally with 'People' in 2022-2023, a track that charted across multiple continents and introduced her Afropop-meets-R&B voice to an enormous audience. Sonny Fodera is a well-established Melbourne-born, UK-based house producer with deep roots in the club circuit and a string of releases on respected house imprints. Their collaboration on 'Let Me Be In Your Arms' bridges Afrobeats crossover momentum with established house credibility.
Walk My Walk — Breaking Rust
INTRIGUING
Country soul blues is approximately as far from melodic techno as you can get without leaving the planet, and yet here we are — because when a track has something to say and knows how to say it, genre becomes irrelevant. Breaking Rust's 'Walk My Walk' is one of those Instagram finds that reminds you your feed occasionally has good taste independent of you. The message lands, and that's the whole point.
Breaking Rust operates in the Americana-adjacent soul blues space, with 'Walk My Walk' appearing on the 'Resilient' album (October 2025). The country blues and soul blues genres have been experiencing renewed interest through short-form video platforms, where emotionally direct songwriting travels extremely well across algorithmic recommendation. This track's appearance in a melodic house-dominated dispatch is the kind of left-field outlier that gives a playlist real personality.
Meet Me In The Dark (Ave Edit) — TERREA
CLUB GROOVE
So TERREA's edit of AVE's 'Meet Me In The Dark' is somehow its own fully realized thing — same source material, completely different emotional temperature, which is exactly what a good edit should do rather than just slap a different artist name on a slight EQ change. The synth backbeat and vocal treatment hit the same chair-dancing nerve as the original but from a different angle. Two versions of the same track both earning a spot is not a problem, it's a flex.
The 'Ave Edit' tag on a TERREA release suggests a collaborative or sanctioned rework rather than an unauthorized bootleg — a common practice in the club-adjacent melodic house space where producers share stems and reimagine each other's work for different set contexts. TERREA appears to be working in the melodic house and club edit space, with a May 2026 release that arrived via Instagram. The existence of two distinct versions of this track in the same dispatch speaks to how thoroughly the source material resonated.
Hold Me — Lavern
FESTIVAL
Stutter house has this percussive hiccup built into its DNA that's either going to annoy you or become completely addictive — Lavern's 'Hold Me' falls firmly in the addictive column, with a groove that uses the stutter as texture rather than gimmick. 2023 release date means this one has been sitting in the ether waiting to be found, and the FESTIVAL energy tag says it absolutely belongs in a room with several hundred people.
Stutter house emerged as a recognizable subgenre in the early 2020s, blending elements of tech house with chopped vocal techniques borrowed from garage and UK bass traditions. Lavern's 'Hold Me' is a 2023 release that has had longevity in curated playlists — a sign of genuine staying power in a genre where tracks often burn bright and disappear. The March 2023 release predates much of the mainstream stutter house conversation, suggesting early-adopter credentials.
One Question — Cloonee, Groove Theory
BANGER
OH HELL YES is exactly the correct response to Cloonee and Groove Theory sharing a release credit — this is a genuinely audacious pairing: Cloonee's tech house muscle meets the neo-soul and new jack swing DNA of Groove Theory, and the result is something that sounds like it shouldn't exist but absolutely should. This is the kind of track that makes DJ sets legendary because nobody sees it coming. Dual playlist (coding + dance floor) is the only sane response.
Groove Theory is best known for their 1995 R&B hit 'Tell Me,' making their collaboration with Cloonee a genuine cross-generational scene connection — neo-soul meeting contemporary tech house in a way that's far more than nostalgia bait. Cloonee has been one of the more consistent names in the tech house and melodic house corridor, with releases that regularly land on flagship playlists. The May 2026 release on a genre tag spanning tech house, neo soul, and new jack swing is a direct challenge to genre taxonomy.
In Or Out — Beau Cruz
INTRIGUING
Not everything needs to be on hard repeat to earn a spot in the dispatch — sometimes a track is just a good discovery, well-made, doing its thing without demanding your full attention. Beau Cruz's 'In Or Out' fits that description: Instagram algorithm finds something interesting, you pull it in, it lives comfortably in the library. That's a valid outcome.
Beau Cruz is an emerging artist in the melodic house adjacent space with limited public profile, making the Instagram discovery channel particularly relevant here — this is exactly the kind of artist who builds an audience through short-form content before label infrastructure catches up. The May 2026 release is a standalone single.
Be Mine — James Hype
FESTIVAL
The answer to whether James Hype knows how not to cook a banger is definitively no — 'Be Mine' is another entry in a catalog that treats floor-filling as a professional obligation rather than a happy accident. The house and tech house framework here is tight, functional, and completely intentional. It's on both the coding session and dance floor playlists because that's just what Hype tracks do.
James Hype is a UK DJ and producer who has built one of the more commercially successful trajectories in the tech house space, with 'Ferrari' (2022) crossing into genuine mainstream chart territory. His releases consistently land on major DSP editorial playlists and he's become a fixture at festival bookings from Ibiza to Las Vegas. 'Be Mine' is a March 2026 release that continues the formula without overcorrecting.
Feel So Good — Lucas & Steve
FESTIVAL
The Swedish House Mafia 'Greyhound' comparison is not accidental — Lucas & Steve are operating from a similar toolbox of massive melodic builds and propulsive drops that reward patience on the front end with serious payoff on the back. The slow build that usually doesn't work here absolutely works because the destination justifies the journey. FESTIVAL tag and dual playlist placement is exactly right.
Lucas & Steve are Dutch producers who have built a significant following in the future house and melodic house space, with multiple Armada-adjacent releases and festival bookings that have elevated their profile across Europe and Asia. 'Feel So Good' appears on 'Making Melodies' (July 2025), their album project that consolidates their uplifting melodic approach. The SHM comparison is a meaningful reference point — that sound has proven remarkably durable.
Let Me Fall — wrongside, Shiftbach
BANGER-ADJACENT
Wrongside and Shiftbach are doing something genuinely textured here — 'Let Me Fall' isn't trying to be the loudest thing in the room, it's trying to be the most resonant, and the sweeping tones with buried thematic echoes accomplish exactly that. The vocal treatment is smooth enough to work as background and detailed enough to reward active listening, which is why it's earning coding session time. Hypertechno influence gives it just enough edge to keep it from going fully ambient.
Wrongside has been building momentum in the melodic techno and hypertechno space, a subgenre that pushes melodic techno's BPMs upward while retaining the emotional architecture. Shiftbach is a consistent collaborator in the European melodic underground. The April 2026 release continues a productive run of output from this pairing, with genre tags that position it squarely in the taste corridor this listener returns to most.
Glow — MA:RK
CLUB GROOVE
The patience required at the front end of this track is real, but MA:RK is buying time deliberately — building anticipation until the groove arrives and then making you feel the wait was worth it. Deep house done with this kind of restraint is increasingly rare in a landscape that wants the drop in the first thirty seconds. The dance floor playlist spot is earned; this is a track for a DJ who knows how to read a room.
MA:RK is working in a deep house space that prioritizes atmosphere and tension over immediacy — a production philosophy more aligned with Berlin club culture than festival main stages. The January 2026 release is a standalone single. The CLUB GROOVE energy designation and dance floor placement reflect a track built specifically for that context rather than for streaming optimization.
Northern Light — Dmitry Glushkov
INTRIGUING
That 80s disco funk rhythm guitar is doing a lot of emotional work here, and Glushkov knows it — 'Northern Light' is a track that knows exactly what it is: the perfect backdrop for everything that doesn't require your full attention but is worse without music. Coding, wine on the deck with neighbors, this sits comfortably across all of it without demanding to be the center of attention. Underrated quality in a track.
Dmitry Glushkov is a Russian-born producer working in the space between disco-influenced house and melodic electronic, a lane that has seen renewed interest as producers mine 70s and 80s source material for groove architecture. The February 2026 release sits within a broader trend of disco-funk interpolation in melodic house production. The coding-session and dance-floor dual placement reflects its genuine versatility.
Stories Untold — Syn Cole
CLUB GROOVE
Follow Me (feat. SACHA) — Martin Jensen, LAWRENT, SACHA
CLUB GROOVE
Martin Jensen knows how to build a track that pulls bodies onto floors — 'Follow Me' with LAWRENT and SACHA has that direct-to-dancefloor quality where the intent is completely transparent and completely effective. SACHA's vocal sits right in the groove without overreaching, and the production has enough propulsion to work in an open-air festival context as easily as a club. Rave and fest playlist is the correct call.
Martin Jensen is a Danish DJ and producer who has maintained consistent chart and streaming presence since 'Solo Dance' (2016), building a catalog that works across festival and club contexts. LAWRENT is an emerging production name contributing to the melodic house and progressive adjacent space. The August 2025 release positions this ahead of the festival season cycle — strategic timing for a track built for outdoor sound systems.
Heartbeat — Only Chris, Lily Denning
CLUB GROOVE
Liquid funk and drum and bass is one of those combinations where if you know, you know — the groove is liquid, the rhythm is relentless, and Lily Denning's vocal sits over it with exactly the right amount of warmth to stop it from going fully cerebral. Only Chris and Lily Denning are making a case that DnB doesn't have to be dark and aggressive to be essential. The genre tags really do say it all.
Liquid funk DnB has been a subgenre with deep roots in the UK scene — artists like LTJ Bukem and Goldie established its atmospheric credentials, and it has maintained a dedicated following through labels like Hospital Records. Only Chris is operating in that lineage with a more contemporary melodic approach. The May 2026 release pairs well with this listener's ongoing interest in CLUB GROOVE territory outside the melodic techno core.
Need You (Flashback) [ABGT677] - Mixed — Tinlicker, Thomas Oliver
CLUB GROOVE
Tinlicker and Thomas Oliver have been in this lane long enough to make 'easy to listen to' feel like an understatement — 'Need You (Flashback)' is the kind of track that works at every volume and in every context because the melodic architecture is just fundamentally sound. The genre tag spanning melodic house, progressive house, melodic techno, liquid funk, and DnB is a flex: this thing actually moves between those worlds without collapsing. Dual playlist coded correctly.
Tinlicker is the Dutch duo of Jordi van Achthoven and Micha Heyboer, who have become one of the most consistent acts on the Anjunadeep label — their releases reliably land on the label's flagship playlists and their live shows have grown from club to festival scale. Thomas Oliver is a New Zealand vocalist with a catalog of melodic house collaborations. 'Need You (Flashback)' appeared in the ABGT677 mix, confirming Anjunadeep family positioning.
Tomorrow (ABGT677) - Mixed — Matt Fax
CLUB GROOVE
Matt Fax's 'Tomorrow' is exactly what it sounds like from an artist who makes progressive trance and melodic house with genuine emotional conviction — the ABGT677 context gives it immediate credibility, and the dance floor playlist placement confirms it delivers on the floor. The progressive trance influence gives it a ceiling height that pure melodic house doesn't always reach. ABGT677 was very good to us.
Matt Fax is a French producer who has been releasing consistently on Colorize (Enhanced Music) and other melodic progressive imprints, building a reputation for melodic depth over spectacle. His ABGT placement is a meaningful career marker — Above & Beyond's curation is selective and the show's global reach is substantial. The May 2026 mix release coincides with what appears to be an active release cycle for the artist.
Mistika (ABGT677) - Mixed — Estiva
CINEMATIC
Estiva's 'Mistika' pulls the CINEMATIC tag and earns every bit of it — this is a track that exists in wide-screen, the kind of thing that scores the moment in a film where the protagonist realizes something irreversible has happened. ABGT677 served up a genuinely varied set and this was the peak atmospheric moment. Easy to listen to is accurate; effortlessly transportive is closer.
Estiva is a Dutch progressive trance and melodic house producer with deep roots in the Anjuna ecosystem — he has releases on Anjunadeep and Anjuna Music dating back over a decade, and his sound has evolved from peak-era progressive trance toward a more refined melodic approach. 'Mistika' marks another strong chapter in a catalog that prioritizes emotional precision. His ABGT appearances are recurring, reflecting a long-standing relationship with the Above & Beyond world.
Taking Us Higher (ABGT677) - Mixed — Darren Tate, Genix
CLUB GROOVE
Darren Tate and Genix together is a proper scene-history moment — this is DT8 Project energy meeting contemporary progressive house production, and 'Taking Us Higher' does exactly what the title promises with zero irony. The trance and progressive house DNA here is not nostalgic, it's load-bearing: this track needs that lineage to achieve the lift it delivers. Bodies moving on the floor is a certainty, not a hope.
Darren Tate is one half of DT8 Project, a long-running trance act with releases on Xtravaganza, Nebula, and other classic trance imprints — their 'Let the Light Shine In' (2003) remains a touchstone of early 2000s vocal trance. Genix is a UK-based melodic techno and progressive house producer with releases on Anjunadeep, representing the label's harder melodic edge. Their collaboration on ABGT677 is a genuine cross-generational handshake within the progressive scene.
The Past, The Present, The Future — David Guetta, Marten Hørger, Men Machine
HEATER
Sitting still is not an option — Guetta, Marten Hørger, and Men Machine have built something that bypasses all higher reasoning and goes directly to muscle memory. The bass house and g-house framing gives this a low-end physicality that Guetta's more pop-adjacent work doesn't always access, and Hørger's production influence is evident in the controlled aggression of the arrangement. Three playlist slots (gym, coding, dance floor) is the correct and only possible response.
Marten Hørger is a German producer who has built serious credibility in the bass house and tech house space, with a catalog that runs harder and more club-focused than typical Guetta output — his involvement here pulls the track toward genuine floor functionality rather than radio palatability. The Men Machine EP (May 2026) positions this as a collaborative project with conceptual framing, not just a one-off single. David Guetta's ongoing collaboration with harder-edged producers reflects a deliberate late-career pivot toward club credibility.
It's Chemical — Kasablanca, Township Rebellion
INTRIGUING
Kasablanca and Township Rebellion is the kind of collab that makes complete sense the moment you hear it and yet somehow hadn't happened yet — both artists operate in that melodic techno space where restraint and release are equally important, and 'It's Chemical' uses that tension better than almost anything in this dispatch. The drop is the whole argument, and it wins. Recurring Kasablanca placement is not a coincidence; it's a preference revealing itself.
Kasablanca is the project of Rami Alafandi, who has built one of the more distinctive voices in melodic techno through releases on his own imprint and wider label support — recurring appearances across four of this listener's dispatches confirm consistent resonance. Township Rebellion is a Berlin-based melodic techno duo with releases on Afterlife and similar dark melodic imprints, and their pairing with Kasablanca represents a genuine alignment of aesthetic values. The May 2026 release lands in a period of high output from both artists.