Just The Music Please

I've been a fan of Grum for many years. His brand of spacey progressive house is exactly what I would want if I owned a nightclub in an orbiting space station with 360-degree views of outer space. Groove Cruise, on the other hand, is a floating, bikini-clad, adults-only music-festival-slash-cruise that goes from Miami to the Caribbean. I would not normally expect Grum to play this kind of gig, but in 2017, he did exactly that, and threw down an amazing 90-minute set with bangers from all the dark progressive legends: Jerome Isma-Ae, Eric Prydz, and Jeremy Olander. I still have trouble imagining this set on a party boat in the middle of the ocean, but it suits my fictional outer space club just perfectly.

The recording isn't the best quality — it's really missing the low end of the spectrum — so you'll probably want to crank up the bass to compensate.

1. Grum - Hourglass

Original post: https://soundcloud.com/dancepassrecordings/grum-theatre-tuesday

Last year's ADE had quite the opening party, as Dutch melodic house duo Tinlicker treated the attendees to a truly unique performance with Metropole Orkest, a Dutch orchestra that has played with a wide variety of artists over many years. The orchestra wrote arrangements specifically for the songs in this set and practiced for months to put on this show. Nathan Nicholson, who is the vocalist on several Tinlicker tracks, also joined the production. The show was magical in person and the perfect way to kick off the week's festivities.

The show had excellent video production and the concert film was subsequently aired on Dutch TV and then posted online, but the videos are only on Dutch websites and not available on YouTube or any other video platform (see the links below). Interestingly, the final cut omits several songs — possibly for copyright reasons — so the track listing below won't exactly match up with the audio.

1. Tinlicker - Be Here And Now

Links:

https://www.amsterdam-dance-event.nl/en/program/2023/tinlicker-metropole-orkest/2033907/

Amy played a wonderful one-hour set to kick off Group Therapy 450, full of progressive house perfect for a night drive. However, since she was the first to play that day, the video for the set feels very incongruous: it's still broad daylight at the Drumsheds and the crowd is thin because not many people have arrived yet. Enjoy the audio-only version instead and drift off to a dark highway illuminated by passing headlights.

1. Above & Beyond - Home (Boxer & Amy Wiles Remix)

Original video: https://youtu.be/okK3Brz5zh4?si=9IxEzI0kyhnlMSW8

The A&B Weekender is never recorded or streamed, so this set is actually a "recreation" done by Tony McGuinness, streamed from his home during the COVID-19 lockdown.

My wife and I were at this show and the scene was electric by the time Above & Beyond came on. Grum's remix of "Is It Love" was very much the song of the moment, so it was the perfect — and really the only — way to kick off the set. Fun fact: the couple next to us got engaged during the intro!

1. Above & Beyond - Is It Love? (1001) (Grum Intro Mix)

Original video: https://youtu.be/juP39fTNMQ4?si=jnRHurgaepGe53eF