Resonant Body

For New Hampshire-based producer Octo Octa, breakbeats and pumping piano chords aren’t just signposts for rave culture of yore; they’re tools for personal liberation. Ever since her ecstatic debut EP, Octo Octa has focused with increasing intensity on the spirit of freedom inherent in classic modes of house and techno, and Resonant Body is her most heartfelt testament yet to dance music’s ability to unite mind, body, and spirit. The album is a more energetic offering than its predecessor, 2017’s Where Are We Going?, with a range of different styles and rhythmic structures. The acid squelch of tracks like “Spin Girl, Let’s Activate!” burns more fiercely, and the tumbling breaks of “Ecstatic Beat” trace a direct line back to hardcore at its most live-wire. The sampled vocal shouts of “Move Your Body,” invoking decades’ worth of similarly emphatic commands, leave little room for confusion—this is music we’re meant to sweat to. But the resonant chords of “Deep Connections” are flat-out gorgeous in a way that peak-time club tracks not often are, while the ambient “My Body Is Powerful” carves out a quiet space for mindfulness amid the high-BPM maelstrom.