With SidekoDJ releasing “Pride”, I found myself unexpectedly gripped by the sort of urgency usually reserved for escaping a burning building or perhaps rushing to tell someone you love them before the train doors close. This isn’t background music for a polite dinner; it commands attention with the insistence of a siren cutting through the fog.
The melody initiates with a rhythmic chiming, saturated in a rapid delay that makes the air shimmer. It’s persistent. It chatters with a lucidity that feels less like a synthesizer and more like the frantic ticking of a cosmic clock. It oddly reminded me of the taste of biting into a spearmint leaf sharp, cold, and undeniably awake. Beneath this shimmering high-end sits a low-end pulse that throbs with biological intent, anchored by a marching beat that propels the whole apparatus forward. It doesn’t walk; it strides.
Then there are the vocals. High-register male vocals soar over the instrumentation, delivering an emotional swell that feels precarious, like walking a high wire without a net. The release aims to explore compassion and self-sacrifice in the face of conflict, which are dangerously heavy concepts to pack into an Electronic Pop vessel. Yet, SidekoDJ pulls it off. The atmosphere becomes stadium-sized, evoking that specific kind of collective effervescence you feel when thousands of people scream the same lyric simultaneously.
It touches on a spiritual intensity, creating a sonic space that feels wide open. The track serves as a strange, beautiful tribute to the idea of surrendering for the greater good, turning a dancefloor anthem into something nearly hymnal. It confronts the harshness of human struggle with a blinding, idealistic light.
Is it a party track or a prayer for the modern age? I’m not entirely sure, but “Pride” suggests that perhaps the only way to survive the darkness is to dance right through the middle of it.
