Electronica edition: Zedd

The kids will like that this one has swear words. But more than those perfectly sporadic expletives, this new hard electro house track by Zedd titled "Slam the Door" has exciting synth builds and a syncopated bass pulse against the pounding four-to-the-floor tempo markers. Synthy "pews" take the first build higher and higher to a calm, melodic break before the hard stuff settles in. Subtle "tss" taps like on a drumset's ride cymbal set off the off-beats throughout the track so that every possible rhythmic pattern is hit.

One way the beat drop in this track is kept so exciting is because the vocal track sample at the top of the build overlaps with the drop. As in, typically you'd hear the couple-word vocal sample and then ...BASS. In this case, the beat drops right with the word "door." Guaranteed though, this one is bound to get playtime from every touring DJ for the next couple of months.

FYI: A couple weeks ago, we featured Zed's Dead and the Killabits. Zedd and Zed's Dead are in no way related. They just both happened to land on strangely similar stage names. Weird, right?