Honey Badger Records unleashes more dance music sans dance floors

Seoul’s borderline conventional dance label Honey Badger Records unleashes its fourth outing in their HBRTRX compilation series, and despite having little or no access to dance floors, all efforts to wean away from a club sound were neglected.

Speaking to producer, DJ and Honey Badger’s founding member JNS, as painful as this perpetual detachment from clubs has been, surefire optimism remains intact. “In terms of content, there isn’t any difference with this and our previous compilations — this series is strictly meant for the dance floor. However, everyone knows we have been in this pandemic situation for almost 2 years now, I was a little worried but decided to release our annual series at the end. I hope these tracks can be played at venues or festivals very soon.”

The 10 tracks that make up ‘HBRTRX Vol.4’ feature Closet Yi, Mignon, Radiofear, J E L L V A K O, Natsumi Hirota, Seo John, Two Tone Shape and the original label founders Jesse You and JNS.

All 10 tracks are dance floor-centric, with JNS opening things up with deep, moody and melancholic acid tones with ‘Night Watcher’, followed by early, warming-up-the-rave vibes from Sojeso with ‘Casino’. Radiofear comes in next with a pulsating acid bassline wrapped around a tricky breakbeat on ‘Space Garden’, which paves the way for Closet Yi’s escalation with tempo and intensity on ‘Unnamed Lagoon’. The rest of the compilation continues to expand around captivating basslines and a wide range of drum patterns and formats.

The 10-track release is a testament to the unwavering desire for Seoul's underground talent to return to their rightful abodes across the city’s dance floors. Hopefully that will be soon.

HBTRX Vol.4 is out now on Honey Badger Records. You can support the label and the artists by heading over to their Bandcamp here or listening below.