The ULTIMATE Guide to Eastern Sounding Dance Music

An offer of employment for anyone here at Best Promos is a Walford-like cause for celebration, and I’m still wriggling with delight at the idea of writing for a grown-up website, even if this bit is hidden behind a 16-foot-tall mystery “pay wall”. How many people will read about my love of eastern sounding dance music? Will anyone care if I prefer eastern sounding dance music to normal dance music? Who am I? Will I turn anyone onto eastern sounding dance music by writing this? I suppose if I can get just one Quietus reader into eastern sounding dance music, then I can move on with my life knowing that I’m now not the only person in the world who likes eastern sounding dance music.

Today's 'EXCLUSIVE only to Best Promos' post is all about eastern sounding dance music. Do you know what I mean? Eastern sounding dance music, or ESDM as the American candy kids are now calling it, is dance music with a melody that sounds a bit eastern, like something out of Aladdin or Prince of Persia.

Do you know what I mean? My kids don't.

When I sat my children down last week and gently opened up about my love for eastern sounding dance music, they said, "What? Do you mean The Egyptian Dance from the opera, Samson and Delilah?" After I'd calmed down and put my belt back around my waist, I said, "kind of, girls, but with a dance beat behind it."

Liking eastern sounding dance music is difficult to explain; there are so many genres of electronic music that have eastern sounding sections and phrases in them, which is why I always wear my Disco Halal t-shirt now. When dance fans stop me in Ruislip and ask me what kind of music I like, I just lift my shirt, I mean, jumper and point at the t-shirt underneath. Say no more.

I want to spread the joy, so I am today listing five eastern sounding dance music tracks that will set you off on your journey of eastern sounding dance music discovery, and I’m going to love every minute of it because listing eastern sounding dance music tracks for The Quietus on Best Promos is like making love to a beautiful woman: you start off slow and speaking Turkish, and by the end of the list you’re urgently, and extremely seriously, going at it like the clappers at around 140bpm.

Will you ever see that beautiful woman again? I reckon that after reading this, you’ll be eyeing up engagement rings in the Argos catalogue before the end of January.

Modern Folk Üçlüsü featuring Aysegul Aldinc - Dönme Dolap (Barış K Edit)

At only 104 beats per minute (and with loads of Turkish vocals on it) Dönme Dolap (Barış K Edit) by Modern Folk Üçlüsü is the perfect track to open this list with. Modern Folk Üçlüsü are an old-fashioned, boring looking band from donkeys years ago who made mostly rubbish music in Turkey (I don’t know who Aysegul Aldinc is).

Nobody had ever heard of them until the corking Barış K edit of their jaunty Dönme Dolap song was included in the Barış K-compiled Istanbul 70 compilation in 2011, and now EVERYBODY has heard of them! It’s a great warm up track for a trendy disco and if you don’t like it, you must have something missing.

You’re a dingbat.

The Maghreban - Revenge (feat. Rutendo Machiridza)

Let’s get cooking. I’m leading you into the bazaar now. Can you taste the eastern flava? The Maghreban, 45, is a very dear social media friend of mine, but I’m only friendly with him because he has an eastern sounding DJ name with an eastern looking logo.



Disappointingly, though, he doesn’t make loads of eastern sounding dance music, and I’ve just spent about half an hour going through his Bandcamp page trying to find something I can crowbar into this article. Revenge is the best I could come up with. It’s Grrrrrilliant and it sounds a bit eastern. Mmm.

Magic Mainline Orchestra – Xumba Xumba (Eden Burns Remix)

The original Xumba Xumba by Spanish dance experts, Magic Mainline Orchestra, is one of the most uplifting and fun pieces of music to have ever come out of Europe in 2021, so I feel a bit bad for choosing the Eden Burns remix. I’ve chosen it for two good reasons, though: 1) it’s a couple of minutes longer than the original, and 2) it’s got a church organ in it.

I go to church every Sunday morning (big up to Father Michael at St. Paul’s in Ruislip Manor), and whenever Jean cranks up the organ, my feet begin to tap and I’m transported, in my head, to a far away land where manic munchkins chant “Xumba Xumba” over and over again on top of a funky beat and an even funkier eastern sounding top line that nobody in the congregation except for me and the Sunday School children would realistically appreciate.

Niv Ast - Tutto Bene (feat. Ruty Klein)

Is this cheesy or is this brilliant? This is the new one on Disco Halal, so if it’s not brilliant…I’ll eat my t-shirt.

 

I’ve just had a re-listen and it is brilliant. I’ve opened all the windows at Best Promos HQ, taken my jumper off and turned the volume up to full whack. Everyone in my street is dancing and singing along to the lyrics in their living rooms: I can see them through the net curtains with my binoculars. It’s bin day today in Eastcote and all the bin men and bin women are skipping, high fiving each other and laughing as they empty my food waste into their enormous, four-wheeled mega bins. Postman Pat has just delivered this week’s copy of The Quietus and given me a thumbs up and an OK sign whilst nodding his head and whistling along to Tutto Bene. There goes Noel in his massive Audi Q4 e-tron with a face like thunder. I absolutely love living in Ruislip.

DJ Zigi - Dancing On A Ceiling (Tony De Vit X-Tended Mix)

Okey doke. We’re at the end, but as I said earlier, we’re not finishing on a floppy downer, we’re climaxing with a hydraulic jackhammer that will leave everyone involved feeling satisfied, stretched, used, drained, and with a deeper understanding of eastern sounding dance music. 

This track, for me, has everything; it’s hard, it’s fast, it’s eastern sounding and I first heard it on the Tony De Vit Elements CD when I was a teenager, so it’s very evocative. Academically speaking, Dancing On A Ceiling by DJ Zigi is a no-nonsense 90s hard house composition that TDV has cleverly reshaped and distilled for the drugged-up thickos in Birmingham to get them gurning even more, and that’s what it’s all about at the end of the day.

It’s also got the most OTT, comically sounding eastern melody out of all of the tracks on this list, so it gets a WHOPPING 10/10 from me.

I think that’s me done now. I’ve had quite enough of listening to eastern sounding dance music for today, thank you very much…

…I’m off to listen to some eastern sounding rock ‘n’ roll now! LOL

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