Electro pair cooks up a funky, poppy dance record for the ages

Now that the funky electro duo Chromeo has gotten your attention with the ambiguous album title for their fourth album (White Women), the heavy uptempo dance record should be where all the attention lies. Inside the pilgrimage David Macklovitch (Dave 1) and Patrick Gemayel (P-Thugg) culls out a relentless dance album while hardly placing their foot on the brake pedal. With a pseudo-Prince vibe and a charming falsetto buckled down to the vocals, White Women never comes across as being serious. It is playful, goofy and, most of the times, hardly disappointing to fans of the dance. In an era of Daft Punk-goes-retro, Chromeo’s latest piece of work sounds more like a homage to urban dancefloor than it does a love letter to white women. The greatest example of this discovery can be heard on cool tunes like “Old 45s,” where it clearly sounds like scripts from Jesse Johnson and Terrance Trent D’Arby were used to sharpen its edges. “If you think that romance is dead and gone/Find a jukebox full of 45s, pop a nickle and dance with me,” Dave 1 sings on this silky throwback to the “good ole days.” Solange, Beyonce’s baby sister and avant-R&B retrofitter, can even be heard on a smart showcase of Drake-esque dreamy soul on “Lost on the Way Home.”

But those two examples are moderate midtempo gems that act as decent cruise-control anthems to the barrage of strobelight workouts that highlight the bulk of the disc. Put your finger on almost any spot on White Women and you’re bound to hear a track kicking out 180 beats per minute. Atop the fast-paced nature of the album comes edible grooves perfectly seasoned with infectious pop melodies. The Toro Y Moi-guested “Come Alive” is bubbly feelgood disco sporting a breezy catchy chorus. From its very beginning to the final drop, it hardly loses its likability. Jamiroquai-tinged grooves highlight “Over Your Shoulder” with “Fall Back to You” sporting Chic-soaked string arrangements and a hunky fade: “It’s never too late to try, I never wanna make you cry/Our love’s to great too attenuate so let’s not say goodbye.” “Frequent Flyer” bears a series of Cheryl Lynn-sounding “higher” chants and Minneapolis funk riffs that are definitely hard to look over. “Sexy Socialite” dips into the playground of LCD Soundsystem and old school Devo. “Play the Fool” is only a step away from Giorgio Moroder ’70’s disco. And then there’s the split realities of “Somethinggood” which cranks out a well-layered ’80’s-synthy disco treat in the beginning. Two minutes from its fade, the tempo manages to slow down to a slow jam status. The album never slows down, except on the two-minute “Ezra’s Interlude,” which features Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig on the warm piano ballad.

Song after song, White Women feels like a cool playlist set by a N.Y. disco curator. And to its advantange, it seems like a lost relic of the Big Party era. Whether the content aboard those tunes are considered lightweight dribble for the picky rock critic is another story. Still it should not take away the fact that Chromeo is shining a new light on the ever-expanding charity of EDM and the need to revive older trends like disco, funk, New Wave and ‘80’s synthpop into the conversations dominating today’s pop market. For the most part, White Women achieves that goal.

About the Author

J Matthew Cobb

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Managing editor of HiFi Magazine

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