Golden Features – Vigil

Anyone who has followed Australian producer Thomas George Stell’s Golden Features over the years will know that there’s always been something distinct about his progressive deep house formulations. While the style has grown in popularity of late, Stell has actually been pushing its direction since 2014 with his innovative and often genre defying ideas. Progressive house’s recent penchant for an emotionally fraught tonality can be linked back to Stell, though with Golden Features that emotion is more often than not shrouded in an offbeat sense of darkness and dread. It’s this touch of the macabre (and the ability to craft a killer hook) that has made Golden Features so distinctive. Stell is arguably one of the most thrilling acts in dance music, albeit more under the radar than those who’ve taken his formula and ran with it to the mainstream. 

Download and stream Vigil here

On his latest single, the aptly titled Vigil, Stell turns to the darkest hours following a party, when things begin to descend into madness. “Vigil is about the point of diminishing returns,” he says, “the sound of birds begging you to go to bed, desperately trying to sleep when your brain won’t allow it.” Vigil is a return to the classic Golden Features sound, a dark, sensual, and wildly propulsive cut that finds itself at the intersection of deep house and bass. Stell works in uncanny 80’s horror drones to lurk beneath his icy vocal refrain on Vigil’s verses, breaking into wonky, wobbling bass acrobatics on the breakdown. There’s a strangeness to Vigil that creeps sinks deep into your bones, a smokey, louche sensibility that’s both deviant and delicious, and that only Stell knows how to pull off best. 

Watch the music video for Vigil below.

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