Album Review: In A Dream - The Juan Maclean

After a five year wait The Juan Maclean are back again with In A Dream, their third full-length album, and with James Murphy's flagship DFA project LCD Soundsystem no longer in existence it feels like this is all the more an important release.

After the experimental high-concept introduction of debut album Less Than Human, The Future Will Come felt more down to earth, infected with smart 80s angled pop and nods to techno. Less conceptual, the seemingly proper house workout Happy House felt a little tagged onto the end, almost an afterthought (albeit a glorious one). In comparison In A Dream is a little more balanced - it is drenched in the stylings of Moroder but oscillates between conceptual pop songs and dance floor inspired moments.

In A Dream puts its best foot forward: opening track A Place Called Space, previewed before the album's release, is an eight-minute epic acid-prog track, packed with guitar riffs, pulsating rhythms and reverberating synths. It is a hell of a statement to open an album with and in contrast I've Waited For So Long, which follows, feels clinical - monochromatic synth pop - and you rather suspect that is the point.

There are ways in which In A Dream feels even more human than The Juan Maclean. On Love Stops Here, Maclean's vocals are more exposed and natural than ever, as he laments love gone wrong against a pure riff borrowed almost directly from New Order. Maclean's musical partner-in-crime Nancy Whang shines as always, tracks like Here I Am bubbling with the kind of minimal house efficiency Maclean nails time and time again whilst Whang's lyrics betray her emotions even if the vocal delivery remains as aloof as ever.

Between them The Juan Maclean have created another impeccably well produced album: it is effortlessly tastefully put together. You can't help but notice the little details because everything here, bar that opening track, is an exercise is considered minimalism. It is difficult not to long for a little bit more excess to contrast with so much cleanliness. And yet as In A Dream closes on the humanist piano riffs of The Sun Will Never Set On Our Love, echoing early track Dance With Me, it's hard not to love this album anyway... It's just as clear as ever that The Juan Maclean make better music than they do albums.

Today: Let's just do it fucking better

Dedication "I Ain't Gonna Tell You" A. Original B. DJ Kaos Highland Park Power Mix http://store.dfarecords.com/products/dfa2410 http://aboveboarddist.co.uk/dfa/DFA2410 https://twitter.com/Felix_Dickinson http://www.cynicmusic.co.uk

It's Friday. Let's be fucking better. Whatever it is you do - take some time today and try and do it much better.

This cut from Dedication is their debut release for DFA and has actually been knocking around for a couple of months. Dedication is a collaboration of Japanese musicians and Western singers led by producer and DJ Felix Dickinson and Japanese designer Mikey Yamada.

I can't really figure out how much of this is new, and how much is just sampled from old disco records but if even the vocal is original then frankly this record is a testament to doing something fucking better. I wish there were artists out there with the same passion and attention to detail as the groups that made all those amazing old disco records.

Today: Don't phone it in... Let's make something amazing.

EP Review: Feel Like Movin' / We Got A Love - The Juan Maclean / Shit Robot

order vinyl & high-quality digital at http://store.dfarecords.com/products/dfa2408 The Juan Maclean Feel Like Movin' (featuring Nancy Whang) DFA2408

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This fantastic new split single from DFA showcases some inspirational new stuff from label stalwarts The Juan Maclean and Shit Robot. Neither song significantly changes the sound each artist has been pushing recently but both feel like they've been honed to close to perfection.

The Juan Maclean's "Feel Like Movin'" features vocals from regular collaborator and (technically ex-) LCD Soundsystem member Nancy Whang, who delivers the kind of semi-deadpan, semi-loved up vocal she used on The Juan Maclean's "Happy House". The track is an upbeat twisted piano-house track full of uplifting and optimistic vibes. Whang's vocals plead you to dance and the track has a weird parallel to The Juan Maclean's beautiful "Dance With Me". Where the latter was aloof but touching, robotics trying to break through into humanity, this is the opposite: sweaty and familiar and up-close. "So let your heart get crazy / and let your head get dizzy / let yourself get busy, it's easy" calls Whang, probably as she disappears into the throng of the dancefloor. It's the rushing intimacy that only comes from lost evenings with lost boundaries.

Shit Robot's "We Got A Love" features comedian and musician Reggie Watts and comes from a similar place but it is a little more understated. Deep throbbing drums and a dubby bass create a momentum whilst the piano loop recaptures early-90s urban distance. Watts' vocal is scattershot and adlibbed, flipping from falsetto to baritone and back within the same verse. It feels like one of Shit Robot's most fully realised tracks since the excellent "Simple Things (Work It Out)".

Both The Juan Maclean and Shit Robot are due full releases in 2014. Feel Like Movin’ / We Got A Love is out now through DFA and is limited to 500 stamped and numbered copies. Grab the digital release of "Feel Like Movin'" and "We Got A Love" from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate links].

Single Review: Dumb Disco Ideas - Holy Ghost!

Yet more disco pouring into our ear holes and down our brain tubes like hot funky wax rivers in a month of seemingly endless disco pleasures. 'Dumb Disco Ideas' is the latest release from disco-influenced DFA house dons Holy Ghost, who achieved greatness with their modern classic 'Hold On'.

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​Dumb Disco Ideas - Holy Ghost!

'Dumb Disco Ideas' actually sounds like a jovially mocking description of Daft Punk's latest album in a month when it seems to have been the only music people talked about but it's also a pretty descriptive title for this new track. This isn't the moody-yet-knowing house of Holy Ghost!'s breakthrough 'Hold On' but it feels like their most exciting track in some time. It is a chaotic and eccentric punk-funk record that manages to be catchy and yet cool, exactly the sort of thing DFA are known for.

Holy Ghost!'s debut album didn't quite deliver but it would be a shame if this gets overlooked as a result. 'Dumb Disco Ideas' makes me think that maybe they are just a decent singles band but this is one of those singles that is good enough you will want to keep coming back to it. Playing with vocal effects, cow bells and big synths the track's latter third slams into a drop that then re-builds as a crazy gospel soul acid house shakedown: a looped chant of the main hook, "Put it off and wait, and wait for another day... Put it off for another day", build like a mantra to how it feels to make a record. There's a bit of LCD in this record and it doesn't surprise me at all to note Nancy Whang's involvement.

The single has an instrumental on the flip and anyone that reads regularly will normally know that I'm an a-side kind of guy when it comes to dubs and instrumentals but this one is pretty special. There's just so much going on the space given to the instruments creates an equally strong track. I dare you to find an acapella that can ride it though...

Dumb Disco Ideas is out now through DFA, available on MP3 from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate link].​ Check out the video below:

Directed by Ben Fries Produced by Deadhorse Films Title Design by Michael Vadino Shot May 2-3 at The End. Special thanks to Jesse Cain, Zach Poff and Brian Crowe Buy Single: http://store.dfarecords.com/collections/digital-downloads https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/dumb-disco-ideas-single/id641336094 HOLY GHOST!

EP Review: Warm Spell - Sinkane

DFA's new one-man boy wonder Sinkane seems poised for great things. Having created some funky, laid back disco-soul joints for lazy days, he's one barbecue summer away from cult-hero status and this EP certainly isn't going to harm his chances.

The track Warm Spell is the Caribbean in aural form - a strutting bass line and complex tribal rhythms give it plenty of juice but it's the steel guitars and sunny piano refrain that make this quite so difficult to listen to without dreaming of warmer climes.

Along with the original and an instrumental this package contains two remixes. Greece's Larry Gus transforms the track into a loose cosmic afro-beat freak out that channels Fela Kuti. Jazzy brass stabs squeal and shout, giving the track a chaotic, improvised feel over an extended length that builds to an heavy close.

Duppy Gun - LA musicians Sun Araw (Cameron Stallones) and M. Geddes Gengras - create a warm dub. It's a contrast that uses the original track's drumming to create an intense loop against the sunny muted guitar work.

Both mixes centre around the original's rhythms and heat yet they both manage to create something totally distinct and the only possible criticism would be that it is a shame the original and the Duppy Gun version are so short.

​Warm Spell is out now through DFA, available on MP3 from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate link]. Stream on Spotify: