Exceptional music, in the right hands, has the potential to be a unifying force. It's not uncommon to observe people of all different ages, racial backgrounds and sexualities gleefully situated elbow-to-elbow when Craig Handfield and Brandon Weems, AKA musclecars, DJ. Their performances, and their Coloring Lessons parties, are outlets for dancers of all creeds to come together under the banner of timeless, old-school New York house music. The musclecars mission is quite simple: to share soulful Black dance music with the next generation of Black music lovers. But their diligence in curating thoughtful environments also means that people of other identities are generally welcome, and respectful, at these events too. "There are white folks who are here to be in these spaces and just listen to this music. Some people don't even want to talk to anybody," Handfield said, reclining on a black desk chair as we spoke. "We saw this dude who didn't say one word to anybody the whole weekend. But he biked from New York City to Glen Falls, just to be there."

On a sticky July day, I visited musclecars in Handfield’s apartment, which doubles as the pair's studio. I took stock of several musclecars totems across the living room as we discussed nightlife safety, crowds and New York dance music culture. A printed record bag with the image of Michelle and Barack Obama, fingers interlocked, against the backdrop of Times Square. The sleek, minimalist interior of a Grand Theft Auto luxury apartment projected onto a white wall. And, of course, records. Records organised neatly into bags, squeezed into a black four-cube bookcase or displayed upright on the floor, resting against a wooden stand. The vinyl collection here included releases as recent as Fred P's 2022 album Abstract Soul and as old, and rare, as Sylvester's 1986 single "Someone Like You," with the vintage Keith Haring art cover still intact.

Weems, Handfield's best friend, slung his arm over the sofa back of a black leather couch, wearing a crisply-pressed black shirt and shorts. By the looks of them, it wasn't surprising that the two shared an affinity for fashion. Handfield donned his own eye-catching outfit, a pastel pink durag and a yellow tiger print shirt, as he, the more extroverted of the two, flitted between dropping conversational gems and laying house records on his record player.

It had been a week since they wrapped up a house music weekender at Glen Falls House in Upstate New York, three days of wholesome and unhurried splendour. In the early mornings, friend groups ambled down rocky hills to access waterfalls that spilled into crystal-clear plunge pools. We spent afternoons lounging by the Glen Falls pool, where bubbles of all sizes and shapes burst into our view of the periwinkle sky and CDJs adorned with silk flowers became vessels for ecstatic vocal house. During the evenings, partygoers filed into a tavern decorated with streams of multicoloured balloons, movie posters from the '50s and at least one mounted moose head. This is where the weekend's headliners, which included Toribio, Love Injection and musclecars themselves, unleashed the most rich and adventurous tracks from their repertoire. As musclecars pulled out tracks from artists like Fortran 5, Ican and Octave One on the third night, Handfield hovered over the decks with charisma, and in one memorable moment, whipped out a cowbell, giving it six strikes to punctuate a house track. Weems, true to his gentle nature, held a more reserved demeanour, lightly nodding with a focused gaze through the evening.

I knew I was going to write about musclecars long before that weekend. As early as July 2021, I watched a swelling crowd at Nowadays part like the red sea to make room for a circle of dancers during one of their peak-time sets. The scene made me double over with laughter, before I promptly continued to wordlessly dance (far from the circle) with a friend I had just met that night. Their party typically takes place at Mood Ring, a snug, astrology-themed queer bar on Bushwick's Myrtle strip. One of the bar's owners, Bowen Goh, recently shared a heartfelt, stream-of-consciousness Instagram post about the party's early days, which allegedly started out with a dinner at the East Village in which the Mood Ring owners and musclecars bonded, unironically, over bloghouse. "I was like who the fuck are these assholes DJing in head-to-toe Thom Browne and pearl necklaces eating popsicles trying to spin vinyl on Myrtle Avenue," Goh wrote. But he was hopeful about their connection, even then. "At the time, I wanted to see more house music in Bushwick."

The musclecars approach to hosting parties underlines the combination of old-school stylings and modern considerations that the duo stands for—their soulful house music works best in progressive settings that allow the style's intrinsic warmth to resonate. Their music doesn't bang in the way that is typical in New York today. It isn't hard, nor is it fast. It isn't necessarily novel either. Every musclecars set is an homage to the classic house sound set forth by earlier New York legends who reigned over the city's house scene in the '90s. Their repertoire is indebted to artists like Louie Vega, Joe Claussell and Danny Krivit, as well as the dance music institutions they were a part of. Think the close-knit, psychedelic environment of David Mancuso's invite-only Loft party—founded on Valentine's Day in 1970—or Body & Soul, the soulful house music event helmed by Joe Claussell, Francois K and Danny Krivit in 1996 and still going strong today.

Even before they called themselves musclecars, Weems and Handfield insisted on carving their own pathways. At the time the New York natives were entering the scene in the early '10s, the city's bloghouse-dominant landscape was not one receptive to cathartic house music. From 2006 to 2011, it was instead the sound of artists like Crystal Castles, Justice and Ladytron that fuelled uninhibited revelry for young and listless crowds. The goal for many of these punters was simple: get obliterated. But Weems and Handfield approached the scene from a purely musical perspective. "While we would go out to have a good time, we were still just fans that would listen to this music at home. We weren't going there for the intention of getting fucked up," Weems said. Still, they acknowledge the humour in this phase of their life. "When I think about where we were going out versus where we ended up, it's interesting." Handfield said. "The spaces that we find ourselves in when we're not DJing are so different from what it was like ten years ago."

In the midst of the bloghouse pandemonium, Handfield and Weems managed to land their first gig at the now-shuttered Lower East Side venue, National Underground, in 2011. The man who booked them, Garvey Clarke, would later invite them to play the Manhattan venue again to play a party called Work In Progress housed in the former Soho mainstay Greenhouse Club, a room adjacent to the famous house sanctuary (and also permanently closed) Club Shelter. The two popped in next door to see Shelter founder and resident DJ Timmy Regisford play, and one of the first things they noticed was that people were actually dancing to the music rather than just drunkenly jumping up and down. Regisford opened their eyes to a life beyond attending shows, and more notably, he introduced them to the luscious world of soulful house music.

At the time, Handfield and Weems were both teenagers working at their respective retail jobs. As young adults, they entered the fashion world due to a love for developing personal style. These gigs would "spiral" into full-time careers at high-end fashion stores, Handfield explained to me over text, months after our last conversation. After college, Handfield worked in corporate fashion at Thom Browne and Bode. Most recently, Weems worked at Dover Street Market New York, where he was able to meet Coloring Lessons residents Hanako Sasaki and Vanessa Li, as well as personal heroes like Daft Punk and Jeff Mills. Though the friends were known for their work in fashion, their rise in the field was purely accidental. "Working in fashion would just get me free and heavily discounted clothes, because who wants to spend money on clothes!" Handfield texted me. "I never cared about fashion. I still don't. We just enjoy our personal style." Their already tepid relationship to the industry ultimately made it easier for them to abandon it when the timing was right, he explained. When the two realised they were becoming more recognized for their work in fashion than their accomplishments in music, they both left to pursue music full-time by 2020.

musclecars' casual cross-genre approach mirrors that of their musical heroes, who were among the first to vet them in the New York scene. Early on in their career, the duo were embraced by a circuit of New York idols, with a series of meetings kick-started by several chance encounters with New York promoter Keith "Kayo" Overton in 2017. One time, on the subway, Weems was listening to Quentin Harris's remix of Donnie's "Cloud 9" when he ran into Kayo and told him how much he loved Harris's rework. In this conversation, Weems learned that Kayo had actually grown up with Harris and worked with him on that exact cut. After sizing them up appropriately, Kayo invited the pair, then 24, to meet Quentin at Le Bain.

It was around this time that Weems and Handfield also met longtime Clairaudience boss Samir Hall, who invited them to Sole Therapy at Black Flamingo (an offshoot of Hall's Good Room party Love & Respect). This time they saw two more of their heroes, New York house DJs Kim Lightfoot and Carlos Sanchez, play for the first time. The next time they would see Sanchez play was at Love & Respect, where he elegantly mastered his Bozak rotary mixer in the Good Room. The weekend after that, the situation was reversed: Hall and Sanchez were seeing musclecars play at Coloring Lessons. After the gig, the duo jumped at the opportunity to solidify the connection with Sanchez, and booked him for their following Coloring Lessons party. Before his untimely death in 2021, Sanchez would become a primary mentor for Weems and Handfield.

During the four pivotal years they had together, Sanchez strengthened a friendship with Weems and Handfield based on a shared deep, resonant love for house music. The three often spent their time together having intimate record listening sessions at Sanchez's house. While Handfield and Weems were in awe of the experience, it seemed Sanchez was equally as impressed with them. Sometimes the two would play an old house track that Sanchez didn't know. And for them, being in the presence of someone who had been DJing since the '70s, and who—with all his knowledge and experience—could still learn from Handfield and Weems, was affirming. "I think that made him want to get behind us and share what he knows," Weems said.

What these seasoned artists saw in musclecars was a revival of a sound that was thought to only be preserved by the legends who pioneered it. From a young age, Handfield and Weems understood the importance of house music and shared a voracious appetite for its history. "I remember a time not too long ago where you didn't really hear younger people under the age of 40 or 30 playing soulful house music. It was something that also wasn't getting reviewed," close friend and one-half of Love Injection, Paul Raffaele, recalls of a pre-musclecars New York. "We did a piece on Love injection by Thomas Cox addressing this, saying, 'Louie Vega has been being nominated for Grammys left and right. Why aren't his singles being reviewed on RA?'"

The singular footing musclecars maintains in the New York house music scene might set them apart from their peers, but it also comes with its disadvantages. Being the only prominent act in their city to orient themselves in a mixing style that is deeply rooted in house music's past means they are their own blueprint for pushing this sound to a younger audience. In a New York scene that overwhelmingly prioritises young DJs that play hard, fast and loud, and often techno, it also means that their definition of success might look slightly different from other DJs their own age.

"It's not as easy as having a night at Bossa to maintain the thing that we do," Handfield said. "The goal isn't necessarily to play Sustain-Release. We have to create a lot of our own goals."

A few days after my first visit with them in Handfield's apartment, we spoke over lunch at one of their favourite Greenpoint restaurants, The Hidden Pearl, where house music played loudly from the restaurant's speakers—almost loud enough, to my misfortune, to completely drown any hope of transcribing our conversation. It was time for us to discuss their debut album. Coincidentally, the restaurant playlist sounded not too different from a musclecars set, I comment. "Yeah," Weems agreed. "Very percussion-driven."

After establishing a reputation for their own label, the pair are currently chipping away at their debut album, which is set for release sometime next year. They told me it will be less dance floor-focused than their traditional output. The LP is inspired by "dynamic house, stuff inspired by the Loft," (which they say might not even be considered house to some), Brazilian bossa as well as early aughts soul and jazz. When I asked Handfield later over text about any particular producers influencing the album, he said American house pioneers like Maurice Fulton, Lil Louis, Ron Trent and Joe Claussell came to mind. I was not told much else about the record in the duo's efforts to maintain some "ambiguïté."

When the pandemic started, the DJs shifted their focus toward production. The first musclecars releases impressed their followers, even their friends, with their advanced musicianship. Their piano house debut single "Don't Go," featuring the impassioned vocals of Brandon Markell Holmes, doesn't sound like the work of a couple of novices—and that's because it isn't. The son of a contemporary country songwriter, Handfield, who could be described as the duo's lead producer, has been making music since the age of 14. Weems' involvement in the production process can be described as more in the background. According to the pair's frequent collaborator and friend Cesar Toribio, Weems' contributions might look like "throwing in suggestions about arrangement, maybe playing a synth line here and there." Handfield, on the other hand, had been quietly working on music for nearly 15 years without releasing any of it to the public. Inspired by the work ethic of artists like Daft Punk—who had several-year gaps between each release—he believes there's virtue in taking time to figure out what needs to be said through one's music. "One thing I think about is that once you put something out, you can't really go and take it back," he said.

The pair also spoke to me about the roadblocks they faced working with Brooklyn label Toucan Records on that debut single EP and their follow-up record, Street Dreams. The main issue they faced was with the label head—who also played the role of the label's A&R and producer—imposing collaboration on certain tracks. It was common for collaborations to be confirmed without Handfield nor Weems being involved in vital conversations. The label head might say, "'Hey, this person is really great to work with. Why don't you work with them?'" Handfield said. "And we're like, 'Oh, no thank you. And they're like, 'Oh, they're already on their way.'" The two launched Coloring Lessons Records in 2020 after the bumpy experience working with the label.

Despite some challenges in the production process, the two don't feel like they had to make any compromises while making these records. The highlights of Street Dreams, the warm, jazzy salves titled "Sun Track I" and "Sol," were the result of a spontaneous work session that the Toucan Records A&R organised between Handfield and indie pop vocalist Tiff Ortiz. Sitting with her late at night, Handfield was working on an entirely different project while the vocalist sat with him in the studio. Unsure of what exactly to do with her, he asked her to sing a few lines written in his notes app, first in English then in Spanish. Describing the collaboration, Handfield said he saw her use of Spanish as a nod to classic '90s house tracks that incorporated Latin rhythms. In the end, he chose to treat Ortiz's vocals like a sample. "The entire project really came together as we made it, whereas usually how we do it is we plan what we're going to do and what the songs are going to look like beforehand," he said.

Since launching the label with a compilation in 2020, Handfield and Weems have highlighted the work of house producers Javonntte, Malik Hendricks and a diverse host of other producers, mainly New York-based, on their two various artists compilations. The imprint, while clearly prioritising house, is welcoming of all genres. What matters to the pair is offering a platform to artists they respect, and then treating those artists with that same respect. The lowest possible record deal available for artists on their roster sees that the artists make 50 percent of proceeds, but the majority will see an even better return. Artists contributing to their compilations, for example, receive 100 percent of their sales.

We exited The Hidden Pearl and made our way down Manhattan Ave. It was suffocatingly hot, and the heat seemed to be inducing mild insanity in everyone around us. We watched as a truck driver head-banged in his car, hands up and windows up, too, so that we couldn't hear what banger was playing inside. "I know he's playing 'Party In The USA' in there," Handfield joked.

As I walked the pair to Handfield's black car, I asked if I could preview some of the album. They kindly agreed to show me one unmastered track in the car. Cut at around seven minutes, the song blaring from the car's speakers seemed to last for a blissful eternity. I watched as people strolled around the intersection of Nassau and Manhattan Avenue. The sun had reached its lowest point right before it began to set. The music was gentle but percussive. Cesar Toribio's vocals slowed time, cascading like buttery silk ribbons. It reminded me of the beauty in patience, and in knowing oneself.