“Big Woof” by BodySync captures the life cycle of a dance party. Everyone wins.

BodySync, a collab between Ryan Hemsworth and Giraffage (neither strangers to the electronic dance game) brings big party energy and a litany of catchy samples to their new EP Big Woof, a title which, in my brain, refers both to the celebratory phrase “Big Whoop” and the particular way my head feels after a night of drinking/dancing/drugs (woof).

While Big Woof definitely brings all the dance floor elements of a spectacular party, the bread and butter of the genre, the EP shines by highlighting *all* facets of a shindig: the back porch, the pre-game, and the strangers you meet along the way. The stuff that makes a party memorable.  

The striking, instantly wonderful opening track “Can You Feel It?” gets the party started right away, although in many ways it feels like a memory – when it ends with the illusion-breaking beeps of a microwave, we’re left questioning. Is this track just a recollection of the party the next morning, full of allusions to beats we have yet to hear? (Spoiler alert: yes).

“Overdrive” follows and captures, as the name suggests, the crew driving to the party. The music only kicks in after an engine revs alive, much like how a perfect pre-game playlist must be set to start immediately. Various whistles pump up the jam, each gathering more revelers into the party wagon. 

“Fantasy” and “Polite Guy” serve as the character numbers (I think of everything like musicals, so sue me), and, as such, they bring the EP in a different fun direction (the whole thing is savagely fun). The former is the back room of the party, the one least noisy and most conversational. Your crush is there, leaning into the romantic undertones of the song. 

The titular “Polite Guy” is somewhere else at the party, and his syrupy tones and indecipherable yet overwhelming lyrics perfectly connote the friend of a friend of a friend who talks your ear off a little too long while not saying much of anything at all. 

A perfectly dropped sample at the end of “Polite Guy” brings us to the actual event, and “Sunset” delivers as only the cacophony of an uproarious dance party can. Ideas are started and then stopped. Threads, once abandoned, are picked up once more. We’re moving through the house, and every room has something to deliver. It ends before you want it to… at full tilt, as the best parties always do. The sunset of the party is often the next day’s sunrise, where the memory can be re-lived by starting this glorious EP over again.