Fast-rising house music producer ESSE has assembled a 13-track snapshot of the genre’s emerging talent with ESSEnce, a new album built entirely around collaborations.Out now via his own ESSEntial Records, the project offers a wide-ranging look at the sounds taking shape across contemporary house music.
Its title, he says, borrows from the oldest definition of “essence,” that irreducible quality which makes something itself.“This isn’t a collection of global dance hits or Billboard toppers,” ESSE tells EDM.com.
“This is music for the streets.For sweaty underground clubs, for bumping in your car, for getting you through whatever you’re going through.
It’s the sound this label has been building all year.Everyone on this album is going to be no stranger to the spotlight.
You’ll see these names on the charts, the biggest playlists and the biggest stages.Get familiar now.” Two particularly compelling cuts illustrate the album’s creative reach.
ESSE teamed up with AZOOLAND and AUGUST for ‘I Love It,’ where a soulful vocal grounds the arrangement in nostalgia while a chugging bassline gives it a propulsive quality to land squarely under our dancing feet.‘Get Down,’ ESSE’s collaboration with the red-hot Rich DietZ duo, takes a more adventurous route.
Built around electro influences, this breakbeat banger contorts around punchy 808s and filthy vowel-bass accents, delivering the compilation’s most distinctive departure from conventional four-on-the-floor house music.Elsewhere, ESSE teams up with LA Riots, BUITANO and JUS RON for standout tracks.
The album’s strongest moments suggest that the future of house music will remain in capable hands as long as producers continue to find new ways to work together.“Just over a month ago I had a crazy idea: put together a mixtape that captured everything ESSEntial has become this year,” ESSE recalled.
“It didn’t stay a mixtape for long.It turned into a full album.
I...