Song You Need to Know: Fennec, 'Boy-U'

“Boy-U,” a new song from Indianapolis musician Fennec, is blasting and delirious, with distant echoes of Nineties house classics (Pete Heller’s “Big Love”) or more recent triumphs in the same vein (Midland’s “Final Credits”) — a dance floor dream brought to life.

The soul samples here are deployed with reckless glee: Fennec builds towers out of vocal snippets, female voices that fly up the scale and pirouette back down, somersaulting like gymnasts and sticking difficult landings. He triggers a new sample before the first has run its course, creating a beautiful babble of warbles and trills. High in the mix, everything shimmers and darts; below it, a nasty disco loop does the heavy lifting, demanding movement with a domineering four-to-the-floor pound that doesn’t let up for around five minutes.

Even when it seems like Fennec couldn’t possibly inject more energy into the track, he finds ways to add intensity — a strafing horn section, or a sudden double-time pattern on the cymbal. And to amplify “Boy-U”‘s appeal, Fennec released a cheerful, grainy video where the footage of dancers is charmingly disconnected from the pile-driving rhythm.

“Boy-U” appears on Free Us of This Feeling, which came out at the end of January. Find a playlist of all of our recent Songs You Need to Know selections on Spotify.