Alexander Ridha has, to this point, remained admirably resistant to the surge of mainstream EDM and the influence of its broader appeal, at least in the sense that he had been crafting more-or-less the same brash, aggressive, uncomplicated dance music that he hit gold with all the way back in 2007 with Boys Noizeâs debut Oi Oi Oi.
Of course, quite a bit has changed (for Ridha, whoâs begun appearing alongside superstar DJs at the worldâs biggest music festivals, and for electronic music as a whole) since Boys Noizeâs last record in 2012, and his latest, Mayday, may signal a turning point for that long-standing consistency. The record reflects the many changes of the last few years, but it is done in a surprisingly dynamic way, (mostly) uncharacteristic of the stock commercial formulas and focus-group-tested sentiment of todayâs blockbuster EDM. The album draws heavily from that realm that just a few years ago Ridha had partitioned off from his own music, but it also manages to retain some of the savage intensity of Boys Noizeâs essential essence, all while quoting a buffet of classic influences in a way heâs never done before. The result is a hybrid album that shockingly kind of works.
For old fans, âRevoltâ and âLos NiĂąosâ carry Ridhaâs familiar burden of grimy, distorted digital instruments and relentless beats while âWould You Listenâ capitalizes on leftover goodwill from Oi Oi Oi with a classic vocoder vocal loop and Ridhaâs dirtiest house beat since â& Downâ, but none are quite like the Boys Noize of old. Still, even album opener âOverthrowâ, though it lands closer to mainstream convention than classic Ridha, is sufficiently manic for old listeners and one of the setâs major highlights, tanking the trackâs requisite house drop with another beat shift into hardcore hip-hop funk in perhaps one of the most inspired moves on the album. Despite its strokes of mass appeal, Mayday offers not only a taste of the quintessential Boys Noize sound, but also some fresh novelty that devotees can easily appreciate.
Other exhibitions into the cold calculation of corporatized dance music donât fare quite as well, but they do range from ephemerally offbeat to bearably uninspired. âMaydayâ, while too toneless to be a standout track, has the caustic build-ups and metallic noise of Ridhaâs best while âMidnightâ and âDynamiteâ are coarse approximations of mainstage EDM, locking standard electro synths behind repetitive vocal loops and, in the latterâs case, a bland drop that abandons everything but the bare essentials of the track. In these moments, Mayday resembles a pared down recreation of the more colorful tunes on Oi Oi Oi, adapted for broader audiences who have abandoned the post-Daft-Punk electronic wave of the 2000s for the spastic dubstep and glowing pop-house of modern dance music.
But the story of Mayday isnât quite as simple as the conflict between Ridhaâs mainstream ambitions and Boys Noizeâs established style; it also finds Ridha looking backward, drawing on the music of his past, particularly the hip-hop and R&B sounds we get hints of in âOverthrowâ. Itâs most notable on âRock the Bellsâ, which gets its namesake from an early LL Cool J hit and reboots the iconic beat from Run DMCâs âPeter Piperâ (itself a Bob James sample used in other rap classics from N.W.A and the Beastie Boys) as a hyped-up electro groove, but itâs also present in Remy Banksâ minor turn on âEuphoriaâ, which, combined with Ridhaâs minimalist â80s techno beat, comes amusingly close to a lost Bell Biv DeVoe demo. Ridhaâs intention with this record seems to be to reach toward commercial popularity without sacrificing his sonic signature, so by making specific callbacks to his lifelong influences, perhaps he feels he can still ground himself in a familiar space, even as he evolves away from it. Itâs his way of making a nostalgia record thatâs simultaneously entrenched in the sensibilities of modern EDM.
If this seems like a lot of space to cover for a minimalist electro album, thatâs because it kind of is. Itâs hard to imagine, for instance, the gritty, percussive rhythms of âHardkotzenâ going over very well at Spring Awakening or Coachellaâs dance tent, but then itâs followed by Hudson Mohawkeâs neon melodies on album closer âBirthdayâ, which also features the kind of life-affirming, party hard sentiment that those very same crowds crave voraciously (specifically in the repeated vocal phrase, âEvery day I wake up, it feel like my fucking birthday,â sampled from Spank Rockâs âBirfdayâ) and it all starts to mingle in an unusual, but admittedly electrifying, way. Mayday could very well be Ridha hedging his bets in a number of ways, but whether heâs harkening back to his roots or pushing toward some fringe of EDM stardom, it canât be said that he ever goes half way.