After a brief hibernation, I’m back. This week I’ve found electro-pop duo Electric Guest. Their debut album, Mondo, was released on April 23rd of this year. It was engineered by Danger Mouse, and that can only mean one thing: they’re fabulous.
When I think of Danger Mouse, I usually think calculated and clever. Each of the projects he works on is never quite the same, but they tend to have a glossy feel. Even though Electric Guest adhere to typical electro-pop norms, they’re much more soulful than your average act these days. It’s Broken Bells meets “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul” off of The Odd Couple. Taccone and Matthew Compton have made head-bopping music that you can listen to after a long day and chill back to.
With a definite funk to their tracks, Taccone and Compton show their take on modern soul. It’s all insidiously catchy—but not irritating. The melodies are smart enough that you could listen to the album several times over and not get bored for a while. Some of the elements that lie underneath the music seem totally removed, like in “Holes.” The swept blipping pattern, while making sense, seems rather removed from the rest of keyboards and vocals. On the other hand, tracks like “Waves,” “This Head I Hold,” and “The Bait” are more cohesive and pretty damn groovy, if I do say so. Compton and Taccone, with Danger Mouse in tow, have done a spectacular job at making a polished, glossy album that is exactly what it should be: clever, calculated, and cool.
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