The second that old Disconnected melody comes back around, I knew exactly which track I was in. Pegboard Nerds pulled the hook that helped put Monstercat on the map and handed it to Teminite and VGR to rebuild. Disconnected Again is a very different animal than the 2012 original.
The move that gets me is the translation. The original floated, all melody and open air. Bass house does not float. It struts. That hook lands on a low, distorted, four-to-the-floor groove now, real weight under it, and Teminite and VGR are the pair you call for that. The airy drama of the first one turns to muscle.
Pegboard Nerds have been a Monstercat cornerstone since Disconnected first landed in 2012. The catalog runs deep, from the Krewella link-up on Another Round to the full Nerds By Nature EP, with their whole bythewavs run in between. Bringing the song that started it back only works when the original mattered.
It is out now on Monstercat Uncaged, and it belongs in a low-ceiling room with the bass turned up past polite, the late slot when nobody has a phone out. Fourteen years on, that melody still lands the second it comes back. That was always the point of Disconnected.
