I'll make my first steps in the sand

Dance songs are like buses: you wait forever for one song sampling Nik Kershaw's "The Riddle" to come along, and then two come along at the same time.

Actually, neither Giorgio Prezioso & Marvin's "The Riddle" or JayKay's "Princess" is recommended, but it's an odd coincidence, like Everything But The Girl's "Waiting For A Star To Fall" all over again. Listening to "Princess" is a particularly surreal experience since it's basically what Flo Rida's "Right Round" would have sounded like had its creators decided to sample "The Riddle" instead of "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)." No exaggeration--if you ignore my strenuous warnings, have three minutes to waste, and listen to it, there's no way you'll be able to see it as anything else.



More worth your time in terms of summer dance fluff is Spanish group Dreaminfusion's organic dance song "The World In My Hand," which, like the aforementioned songs, features on Volume 13 of Vale Music's annual Disco Estrella. It's a release I always look forward to more than I should, given Vale's general cheap tendencies, the often year-old nature of many of the songs, and the "playing in the background at your nighttime beach party" vibe, but the series can feature some gems; it's the first place many of us heard Lucky Twice's "Lucky," for example.

A few more days may reveal if there are other songs worth mining from it (though it already obviously features some of the best singles of last year, including two of my favorite dance songs, DJ Layla's "Single Lady" and Junior Caldera's "What You Get"), but, to be honest, I've not given Disco Estrella much of my time yet--I've had difficulty tearing myself away from Kpop the past few days.