Dawn Golden and Rosy Cross

You may already know the music of Chicago's Dexter Tortoriello through his group Houses, an ambient electro-pop duo with girlfriend Megan Messina that has not wrongly been lumped in with the sub-genre known as chillwave.

His latest project, Dawn Golden and Rosy Cross, is minimal, bittersweet party music—and also often chilled. Elements of post-dubstep, club rap, noise and left-of-center piano balladry appear across his Blow EP, out in April on Diplo's Mad Decent label. The beat of first single "Blacks" is suggested more than realized; a throbbing synth proves to be the thing that keeps your head bobbing. Tortoriello's voice seems to be coming from the next room, singing something about "power lines." Then, a powerful accent beat comes in, a thousand feet stomping on bleachers in perfect time.

The plaintive, chopped-and-diced piano piece, "White Sun," features Tortoriello's voice more prominently, this time coming through a nearby radio. As the first part of the song plods along beautifully, Tortoriello's lines are accented by a shouted "Yeah!" that manages to still sound sad. The beat picks up in a moment, with a line of quickly falling percussion that wouldn't feel out of place on Four Tet's Rounds. Tortoriello's lazy, comforting voice is singing about "your mother's bathing suit" and a "bottle of wine," and it has you all nostalgic for the moment you're currently in. Nowstalgia, let's call it. —Eric Deines