This week in dance music: The Coachella 2026 lineup came unusually early, and we ran down every electronic artist playing the fest. SG Lewis, Chris Lorenzo and teams made up of staffers from Beatport, CAA and Red Light will play in the annual charity soccer tournament Copa del Rave in L.A. on Oct. 9. The event will also feature off-field entertainment in the form of sets by Bolo, Juos, Karaba, Life on Planets, Thee Mike B and Soraya and a halftime show by Kah-Lo.
Madonna announced that her next album will be a dance project and that it will come out on Warner Records in 2026, Illenium announced a new album called Odyssey along with a March 2026 Sphere residency of the same name. Massive Attack announced that they’re taking their music off Spotify in all territories due to reported investments made by the streamer’s CEO Daniel Ek (made through his investment fund Prima Materia) to Helsing, a defense company that sells AI software to inform military decisions.
We spoke with John Summit and leaders from his Experts Only label about the imprint’s origins, how it thinks like a major while maintaining its indie status and, as Summit said it, “My A&R room is literally playing to a crowd of 10,000 people and seeing if it works.” We spoke with UKG phenom Sammy Virji about his excellent new album Same Day Cleaning, and we spoke with Portola founder Danny Bell about his “mad scientist” approach to curating the festival’s lineup.
That’s a lot of speaking! Time for some music. These are the best new dance tracks of the week.
If you find yourself weary about the state of the world after this week in particular, let Nora En Pure’s latest function like salve for your mind and soul. The producer has made her name on rich and simply pretty productions that evoke fresh water and clean air and the healing power of nature, and her latest “Teahupoo” — a piano laced deep house floater — is a welcome more of the same.
“Teahupoo” is out on Enormous Tunes. Listen to it here.
The Chainsmokers return in a man of the woods state of mind, with the rural aesthetics of the video and art for their new single “Smooth” matching the lightly-strumming-on-a-guitar-by-campfire-light of the song’s first 45 seconds. This being The Chainsmokers, the track then ramps up into a dance pop fist pumper that, like these early days of fall, maintains a lot of brightness laced with slightly more melancholy mood.
“Smooth” is out on Secondhand Happiness/Disruptor Records/Columbia Records. Listen to it here.
Oliver Heldens, working here under his club-focused HI-LO alias, delivers an homage to the reese bassline famously invented by techno creator Kevin Saunderson in the early ’80s. The track is therefore thick, heavy, appropriately pummeling and quite stylish, with these attributes making it an ideal fit for Adam Beyer’s revered Drumcode label. “Reese” comes as part of a larger project that will be released by Drumcode next week.
Listen to the the track here.
Who is Zoey808? We’re not really sure, but it’s a question so pressing that the artist has named her new album in homage to it. We do know that the masked producer has generated cross platform virality and made her live debut at Electric Forest this past summer, but regardless of her actual identity, what’s clear is that she’s carving out a space for herself in the bass world with her stylish and heavy productions.
Whoiszoey? is out on Zoey Worldwide. Listen to it here.
