The Juan MacLean, The Future Will Come
LCD Soundsystem's electronic little brother goes Human League
John Maclean claims that The Future Will Come is a "disco-inflected Human League-sounding record," but you'd be hard-pressed to hear it in the album's opening tracks. "The Simple Life," is an eight minute electro odyssey — version 2.0 of Maclean's 2005 debut Less Than Human — while "The Future Will Come"'s plodding drums and speak-sing vocals recall nothing less than DFA label boss 'James Murphy's LCD Soundsystem. In fact, it's not until the unbridled pop of "One Day," in which Maclean and DFA's vocal-go-to-gal Nancy Whang start trading couplets that you even begin to make the connection.
However you want to spin it, though, it's clear that more than anything else, Future is ebullient. Despite its trio of lengthy floor-filling numbers, this is an album that always has its eye on some Utopian Billboard chart where Cerrone, Moroder and Chic radio singles still rule. It's a world where electronic music is still actually played, with live drummers, impossibly warm synthesizers and handclaps upon handclaps. Despite its aforementioned 12-minute run time, closer "Happy House" is the culmination of this aesthetic, a joyous exultation that lovingly lifts its two chords from every house track ever (generally) and Dubtribe Sound System (specifically) and ends with Whang singing "Launch me into spaaaaaaaaaaaaace!" By track's end, you'll know exactly what she means.
