by Tensnake

(Permanent Vacation)

Dance music always looks back, and for a good decade now it's been staring hardest in the rearview at early-to-mid-'80s post-disco and boogie. Tensnake's "Coma Cat" is more mid-'80s than early: The stuttered vocal phrases ("Can I get, can I get-get?"), neon-lit keyboards, and busy bass line could belong on any number of Arthur Baker productions. "Get It Right" is more of the same, only more diffuse, but "Need Your Lovin" is the prize. The vinyl has a dub version only, but the digital release features the vocal original, which is chirpy and perky in the way of so much post-Thriller R&B: appealingly pinched female vocal ("I need ya! I want ya!") and a keyboard hook to match, like a twist of lemon on a club soda.

by I:Cube

(Versatile)

I:Cube has celebrated that mid-'80s era, too—see 2005's "Tokyo Uno," a nine-minute robotic funk epic. (It starts and stops a lot.) "Falling" is a lot simpler, and it also ups the ante. The way it does that is to more or less pay explicit tribute to post-disco minimalists Metro Area (whose "Miura" was recently named best track of the '00s by techno website Resident Advisor), with a strong hint of Patrice Rushen's "Forget Me Nots." Good move. The B-sides, "Un Dimanche sans Fin" and "Operation Hypnosis," are quite different—the former a head-turning take on Basic Channel dub techno, the latter dirty circa-'93 German trance (aka the only kind of trance worth listening to)—but both look back just as effectively in their own way, and the differing styles give the EP a nice roundedness.

by Deniz Kurtel feat. Guests of Nature

(Crosstown Rebels)

"Yeah," on the other hand, goes back further still, all the way to house's beginnings. The thunking keyboard bass, skinny little digital hand claps, a basic maracas overdub, and a vocal that sounds both like church and like it was designed not to wake Mom in the next room—all give it the eerily bare feel of an early Trax record. It's not an exact replica, thanks to the appearance of relatively lush synths halfway through, but the filtering they're given has a rawness of its own that matches that early feel.