Five weeks after the stillness of “Blue Hour,” DJ Cards is back with something that makes you want to move again. “Sideways” came out on September 25th, the fourth single from Philadelphia’s Michael Cardamone, and it puts the vocals and the momentum back into a project that had just spent a whole track proving it could do without them. It’s the same trance and melodic house world I’ve followed across “Forward,” “After Midnight,” and “Blue Hour”, just pointed in a more energetic direction.
Where “Blue Hour” was built around one quiet window of the evening, “Sideways” is built around motion. It sits at 130 BPM, and the track continues the trend of well-produced EDM that Cardamone has stuck to from the start. The mix is clean and holds together when things get busy, which matters in a genre where a big arrangement can easily turn to mud. According to the press materials, the song moves between softer, atmospheric vocal passages and bigger instrumental sections, with soaring female vocals and chopped vocal hooks over a melodic line meant to stick.
It’s also the kind of record that suits a specific setting. This is a great one for a drive down the highway, windows down, with the road doing half the work. The energy is steady and forward-leaning rather than frantic, so it sits well over a long stretch of driving without demanding your full attention.
The press release calls this his most melodic and expansive track yet, which is a big claim given how much room “Blue Hour” gave itself. It’s easier to hear it as the louder half of a pair. Cardamone has now put out one track that skips the drop entirely and one that leans into the lift, and they land as two different moods rather than one being a watered-down version of the other.
That range is what makes DJ Cards worth watching. “Sideways” shows he can bring the energy back without losing the polish, and after a patient track and an energetic one, it’ll be interesting to see which direction he picks next.