Dusky

When Londoners Alfie Granger-Howell and Nick Harriman formed Dusky in 2011, dance music was still largely under the sway of dubstep. But Dusky helped reintroduce the reassuring pulse of classic house music, seducing dance floors with their muscular, bass-heavy touch. After bonding over a shared love of dance music in secondary school, the friends got their start in the late 2000s as Solarity, making hypnotic progressive house for Above & Beyond’s Anjunadeep label. But their music took a funkier turn with early Dusky tracks like 2013’s “Nobody Else” and “Careless”. Fusing bass music’s vocal chops with the pumping grooves of house music, they helped lay the groundwork for the high-tech patina of what would soon become known as future house. As vintage club sounds had become de rigueur on dance floors, Dusky continued to cast a wider net on 2016’s Outer and 2021’s JOY, pulling techno, garage, drum ’n’ bass and classic rave into a timeless dance amalgam distinguished by its deep emotional resonance.