3Angle’s “I Don’t Want Nobody”

Delicate strands of a bittersweet vocal melody form a brilliantly exotic patchwork as 3Angle’s “I Don’t Want Nobody” comes into focus. Leading the way is singer Alton, whose voice was tailor made for a project of this caliber; in these first few bars, the serenade that he shares with us is soft and full of a youthful fragility somehow capable of withstanding the crunchy bass bearing down on it as we progress in the track. The energy is electric, the mood infected with the very essence of yearning, and as the song strikes up a rhythm that will pull us into its arms quite aggressively within the next minute, it becomes clear that 3Angle are looking to change the game with their latest, and potentially greatest, release thus far.

The drums plow through the mired synths and set everything in the track on a steady path towards the stars while the grooves grow bigger and bigger, but we never feel as though we’re about to be suffocated by all of the overwhelming color and texture creating a backdrop for the lyrics. Alton commands our attention away from the industrial stomp of the percussion whenever the music starts to get a little too assaultive, and though his timing is skewed with the contrasting pace of the bassline, his verses keep flowing without any interruptions or speedbumps. This mix is kind of abrasive relative to what 3Angle have gone with in the past, but personally I like the change in direction that they’re making here.

Both the standard cut of “I Don’t Want Nobody” and the extended club version of the track are really easy-listens that don’t ask a lot out of their audience in exchange for some exciting percussive plunging and the occasional cry of the synthesizer every now and again. I’ve never been the biggest EDM fan, but I don’t think that you have to be to dig a single of this kind. 3Angle and Alton make it possible for anyone to follow these beats, and with the absence of any overt hip-hop, trance or avant-garde influences, it’s actually rather difficult to categorize the song as anything other than a vastly appealing pop composition that has been amended for the needs of society’s dance fanatics.

“I Don’t Want Nobody” comes to an end much in the same way that it begins; with the glowing, reverberated vocal of Alton cascading into the ethers from which it was first spawned. I’ve been listening to 3Angle for a minute now, and though I had high hopes for their latest release, I wasn’t expecting to hear something as cultured, handsome and startlingly melodic as I did in this track. They’ve come a long way in very short amount of time, and if they keep making hits at the rate that they have been these last couple of years, I can see their status as players becoming too big for the underground to contain. They’re acting like seasoned pros in “I Don’t Want Nobody,” and winning over a lot of new fans in the process.

Mindy McCall