Tanlines seem poised to be the next big indie-dance stars. That’s a fact that might strike many who’ve followed these guys’ previous careers as bizarre. It shouldn’t. The duo, consisting of Jesse Cohen (previously of dance-punkers Professor Murder) and Eric Emm (of classic indie outfit Don Caballero), are simply joining the long tradition of forward-thinking rockers making a transition to glittering dance-pop. Everybody who knows things has always known there was no real rivalry, or even much of a cultural divide, between CBGBs and Studio 54. Consequently it wasn’t long before loads of punkers realized their love of Giorgio Moroder didn’t need to be a dirty little secret. Since, from Gang of Four to James Murphy, many notable musicians have made the leap.
Now of course these days it isn’t unusual for every underground rock hit to spawn dozens of dance remixes, or even for the those same rock bands to be doing remixes of other bands’ tracks and so on and so on. Tanlines began life primarily as a remix entity, one of those ever-proliferate “production duos.” So in the whole scheme of things these new tracks we’re hearing from their debut full-length, Mixed Emotions, are a step back into the conventional. That isn’t meant as a pejorative but rather an acknowledgment of their progression (or regression, depending on point-of-view) from exclusive soundscape tinkerers to a group that writes and records songs. As one of those, they’re doing pretty well for themselves.
Upon first listen to “All of Me,” one of several pre-album-drop tracks made available, the first thought is that Eric Emm has a great voice. It’s full and smooth and a little off. So the biggest and most important point in this game goes to Tanlines off the bat. This kind of stuff doesn’t work with grating vocals. Listen further and the pulsing simplicity gets more and more under your skin to where slight tweaks in the arrangement, as in the extended bridge near the end, are blips of ecstasy. This track, and the album, are truly dazzling. Get out and buy it kids.