Last time we heard a solo record from Norwegian producer Hans-Peter Lindstrom, he was doing his best Manuel Gottsching impression on the space disco touchstone Where You Go I Go Too. In some ways, the album was a sign of things to come. Since its release in 2008, a new generation of independently minded musicians has come to fetishize vintage synthesizers and spark a new niche term, "hypnagogic pop," for the dream-like textures and retro-sheen of its music. One of the figureheads of that scene is guitarist Mark McGuire, whose Emeralds trio deserves a lot of credit for the synth renaissance.
McGuire and Lindstrom collide on this remix of the latter's new single, "Deja Vu," the first tease of Lindstrom's upcoming album Six Cups of Rebel. While my favorite Norwegian DJ seems to be picking up the disco-funk laid down by LCD Soundsystem, but McGuire's Stratocaster is the star here.
"I was introduced to the music of Emeralds when they put out Does It Look Like I'm Here? on Editions Mego a few years ago," Lindstrom writes in an email. "I really like how Mark has been layering a lot of guitars on top of an already crammed track, and the transformation into a massive atonal drone-monster."
McGuire's slow-burning licks replicate the feeling of driving down an empty highway toward a sun disappearing behind the horizon. Combined with Lindstrom's original all-night groove, it makes for a disorienting dance party.
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