On “In The Studio (2 Step),” DJ Pierre buries his club-ready chants of “two step” and “it’s that feel good music,” under layers of airy piano, dusted drum kicks, and some distortion blasts that’d make Salem jealous. The more prominent Pierre vocal though, has the Baltimore producer boasting that he’s “in the studio all night,” cleverly inverting the hundreds of club joints that celebrate being out until the wee hours of the night, living it up. The song’s about music production and sonically, there are even a few lo-fi nods to the fact that this is a recording. The synths that open the track are in-the-red. At the peak of the song, when all its shambling elements brilliantly lock-in for a tangled, catchy shuffle (seriously, the last minute of this track goes), Pierre sings wordless mumbles, which sound like rough, guide vocals to be turned to a hook later on. Messy studio chatter, complete with audio clipping ends the thing. To swipe Nick Sylvester’s idea, I’ll call this a song that knows it’s a record. These are extremely strange qualities for a club track though. Baltimore club is one of the most dogged and pragmatic genres out there, preferring in-the-box innovation over the glitchy, experimenting of Pierre’s work here. How can a track that begins with a burst of noise and ends with behind-the-scenes audio make its way into a club set? Does that even matter? Compliments to Pierre for making something as lawless as “In The Studio (2 Step).”
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