Notes

‘At the River.’ Twenty years ago, the sound of the moment was known as downtempo, personified by bands like London’s Groove Armada. Downtempo was slow-paced, more for the fashionable cocktail bars than the all-night dance clubs. This song, with just under 65 million plays on Spotify, may be the first led by trombone to appear in The Signal. But it shouldn’t be the last.

Where’d the downtempo sound come from?

—Brendan Hasenstab