Jax Jones, D.O.D and Ina Wroldsen bring nostalgic feels to “Won’t Forget You”

Jax Jones taps up a couple of old friends—D.O.D and Ina Wroldsen—to help him create some fresh heat on “Won’t Forget You”. While the track nods to the ’90s with its trance flavours, the trio have made sure it isn’t stuck in that decade. “I’d be lying if I don’t admit that I love the ’90s,” Jones tells Apple Music. “It just speaks to me. I think it’s the hip-hop influence on dance at that time. The equipment that was around, it’s very natural to me and the type of vocals they were using. When things started getting faster and a bit more trancier, I really connected with that. But to update it, I try to make sure that it fits with what other people are playing right now—in terms of the bottom end, and making sure that the vocals have a modern quality, so that we can reference those nostalgic feels whilst it still sounds of 2023. We don’t want to sound dated. Tasteful nostalgia!”

Jones previously worked with D.O.D on one of the songs of this summer, “Need You Now”, and this track rose out of the same sessions. Jones says he loves his fellow DJ/producer’s “speedy musicmaking”, a creative process where nothing is dwelled over for too long and hundreds of songs and ideas emerge. “‘Need You Now’ and ‘Won’t Forget You’ were part of this period of genius,” he says. “And Ina and I have an amazing chemistry when we write music. Everything I do is underpinned by R&B. I grew up on US import R&B—Darkchild, Tim & Bob as music producers, later stuff like The Neptunes. Ina had the same—in fact, she was writing songs in those periods with some of my heroes. So when we write together, it’s very natural. When you look at dance music, especially house music, a lot of the melodies are lifted from R&B records, if not sampled. When you come through with those influences, it sounds beautiful on house music. It’s a relationship that will always be making bangers. And winter time is for the summer bangers. That’s when they get made. I’m literally on the way up to Cambridge as we speak to go and work with a house legend, Shadow Child, to see what ideas we can cook up.” This week, you can also hear huge tunes from Billy Gillies, cassö and Joel Corry—then add this playlist to your library to stay up on the biggest bangers from around the world.