Juan MacLean is a much-loved New York City electronic musician and producer who started LCD Soundsystem with James Murphy and who established The Juan Maclean through acclaimed albums and 12″s on DFA Records in the first decade of the 2000s including a personal favourite – The Future Will Come from 2009 and hasn’t really let us since in releasing music that draws from disco, techno, house, electro, synth-driven pop and ambient music.
Saturday sees a rare appearance in Dublin at one of the best sounding rooms in the city Hang Dai Chinese presented by Board Of Works and his DJ sets are equally wide-ranging – slo-mo chug to heady hypnotic techno, and every thing in between. Here John MacLean shares ten current favourite as a preview of this Saturday’s set.
Barker – ‘Force Of Habit’
This ia the first track from Barker’s latest LP, Stochastic Drift.’ This LP is probably my most-listened to record of the last year. It is both ‘post genre’ and genre defying, while being evocative of kindred dub influenced pioneers like Basic Channel. Barker’s music is both complex and simple at the same time, holding interest over repeated listenings, a real rarity for me these days. Calling it ‘ambient techno’ is a bit of a disservice, I think. I can’t say enough how much I love this album! I often drop this in the middle of DJ sets, which is super tricky because I have no idea where the ‘1’ or first beat of the phrases is!
Crossover – ‘Phogtographt’
This got a lot of play in the very early days of DFA, it was on heavy rotation around the office, and those of us who were DJing were playing it a lot in DJ sets. Really brings me back to that time and the brief burst of what some called ‘Electroclash,’ though we weren’t really using that term. Gigolo Records and DJ Hell were pretty big influences in those days, and I always remained a big DJ Hell fan. He gave me a big nod of recognition by putting my second release, ‘You Can’t Have It Both Ways,’ on a mix cd called Electronicbody – Housemusic. It was before there was really any substantial music streaming on the internet, so commercially available mix cds were a big deal!
Lasser Drakar – ‘Libre Gracias A Mi feat. Rebolledo’
This is a straight up banging maximum fun rager from two beloved Mexican producers joining forces. I am a long time fan and supporter of Mexican electronic music, particularly a specific strain of slower, chuggier and psychedelic stuff that often has a bit of a rock influence as well. This one is pretty uptempo, and Rebolledo’s vocals really evoke that kind of Mexican party vibe that I love. The overall production is stellar as well, it really slams with a good sound system. But it probably also sounds very cool blasting through some broken speakers.
Shit Robot – ‘Space Race’
Shit Robot is one of my best friends, an Irishman living in a castle in Germany, nearly a Count now, so I’m clearly biased. This is a persistent chugger that has a lot of the signatures of his sound like 1/6th note arpeggio, simple but dramatic melody that can be played with one finger on the keyboard, some live drums, and a sense of a robot gone off kilter. Put this in my collection for an upcoming Eu / UK our, and of course will probably make an appearance in Dublin.
Beyond The Struttosphere – ‘Replicants’
Epic slower tempo chugger that I dug out again recently, this came out around 5 years ago. 303 bass line, big dramatic guitar-ish stabs, live drum samples, it ticks all the boxes for me for that Cosmic Darker Side Of Disco domain that I tend toward. Stellar production as well, sounds amazing on a nice sound system.
Hackney Electronica – ‘H.E. Nuestro Circuito
Another bit of psychedelic chug from Hackney Electronica, which features Quinn of Paranoid London fame as one of its producers. Around 100bpm and very groovy, this hearkens back to another era of menacing warmth by way of electronic machines. Slow and dark machine funk, a sound that I have always gravitated toward.
Coatshek – ‘Triple Virgo’
This recently came out on one my favorite reocrd labels, Dark Entries. It’s a bit like slow-mo ambient dub techno, a low tempo groover. It’s from an EP of similar of very simlar tracks that are all at 107bpm. Loads of psychedelic guitar stabs and big delays and reverbs, the music was born out of the producer being asked to do a mix to play as a soundtrack in an imaginary queer bathhouse. The entire release is fantastic.
Ana Roxane – ‘The Age Of Innocence’
Super dreamy beautiful dream pop, or ambient pop, or something like that. I really love genre defining music that still has a bit of familiarty. This is a ballad set to ambient soundcape type textures, short and sweet, with a very human quality. Definilty could not be made by AI. I highly reccommend, the entire album this is from, ‘Poem 1.’
Luomo – ‘Present Lover’
I dug this one out recently, enough time has gone by that I get the feeling younger people at my gigs have no idea who Luomo is. Another early 2000’s huge influence and Luomo felt like a kindred spirit, producing forward thinking vocal House that was melodic and at the same time very futuristic sounding. I was very intrigued at the time, could not figure out how these productions were made. Sasu Ripatti, the man behind Luomo, also produced incredible forward thinking ambient music under the name Vladislav Delay, which I became very obsessed with back in the day.
Dead Can Dance – ‘Song Of The Stars’
I’ll break this out in my adventurous DJ sets. It’s feels less like a song and more like a ritual transmitted from the edge of the cosmos.
There’s a real World Music feel, but the interesting thing is that the sounds aren’t taken from some other specific people or culture, so it’s more like some kind of Neo Shamanistic ceremonial journey that defies easy categorisation.
Juan Maclean (DFA) @ Hang Dai Dublin with The Board of Works this Saturday May 23rd.
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
