DJ and Producer Gavin_P’s last single, Ain’t Nobody, was one of the feel-good records of Summer 2022, heard across Ibiza from Cafe Mambo (Radio 1 Ibiza Weekend), to Hï! Ibiza, and O Beach.
Gavin_P is back, right on time for Summer 2023 with his double A-side ‘By My Side / Back Then’ released 12th May, on Waze & Odyssey’s label Street Tracks.
‘By My Side’ is a joyous piano house masterpiece that’s bound to get people dancing at pool and beach parties all around the world as temperatures rise this summer. The track starts with a driving, expertly layered with a minimal dirty bass, before cutting to an infectiously catchy 90s House piano line, setting the scene perfectly for the soulful vocals: Now that I’ve got you by my side / Tell me are you ready for the ride? / You know we’re gonna make it last all night / So let’s just take our, take our time. Classic yet contemporary, By My Side is a track that will appeal to post millennial poolside partiers as much as to the Gen-Xers who remember and cherish it all from the first-time round.
Moving things firmly into the sounds more reminiscent of later nineties, ‘Back Then’ is a track that will get you digging out the likes of Tall Pall, Tomcraft and early Tiefschwarz from your collections. Whereas By My Side tells of a joyous reunion, Back Then’s vocal laments of a love lost: Now you hold her hand like you held mine back then. Beautiful minor piano chords frame the vocals, before giving way to a deliciously wicked bassline. Music is the space between notes, as the famous phrase goes and Gavin_P uses space expertly in this track, building to crescendo and deconstructing several times to brilliant effect.
Gavin_P explains: ‘By My Side’ is my old school piano house banger and a personal favourite. Currently, the dance music scene is the best it’s been for 25 years or so – more joyful, more soulful, like old school American garage, UK piano House and Acid House. For ‘Back Then’, I combined a piano house riff with a more modern bassline and a vocal that pulls at people’s emotions. When it breaks down, it’s pretty uplifting.
