Diplo returns with another Major Lazer offering, and it's restoring our faith in EDM
You're Our Only Hope
by Sean L. Maloney
Listen up, kiddos, because many Bothans died to bring us this information: Major Lazer's forthcoming album Free the Universe is absolutely badass. It's set for a March release, but all existing copies are locked up tighter than a clam with lockjaw. Our connections within the Rebel Alliance have hooked up the goods, and while we can't play it for you, we can tell you that it's worth the almost four-year wait since Guns Don't Kill People ... Lazers Do. Major Lazer's arm-mounted booty-blaster is set for stunning, and there's no way you won't be droppin' it when the post-dancehall beats start carpet-bombing your dome. It's the future of dance music, the future of humanity — a sweaty, booty-clappin' future that you should be more that happy to be a part of.
Major Lazer — the amorphous, transnational freak force led by superstar DJ/producer and Mad Decent label head Diplo — is not an easy beast to nail down. While the general idea is that Major Lazer is a dancehall outfit — the album was recorded at Tuff Gong in Kingston, there are cameos from dudes like Vybz Kartel and Elephant Man all over the place, and there's more reggae influence than just about anything else happening in EDM at the moment — there's more to Free the Universe than just that. With guest appearances from Canadian electro-performance artist Peaches, Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig, Amber Coffman of experimental indie rockers Dirty Projectors and Wyclef Jean, Free the Universe becomes more than a dance record, taking on the mantle of pop deconstructionism and breaking down the genre walls erected by critics, marketers and iTunes algorithms. It disassembles standard pop tropes to the point where this critic — an avowed enemy of Vampire Weekend and everything they stand for — actually enjoyed the Koenig cameo!
Free the Universe plays it fast and loose, like a 12-parsec Kessel Run — it's stylistic pitch- and yaw-changing at light speed, rolling between the galactic kickdrums and robo-chants of "Sweat," the epic, deep-space dub 'n' bass of "Jah No Partial" and the Trenchtown-by-way-of-Mos Eisley juke of "Jet Blue Jet." It's a blur of vibes and styles, a swirling polyphony of synths and drums that cuts right to the core of your being, strikes out straight for the center of the cosmos — shaking up the boredom and predictability that have defined EDM's explosion into the mainstream. Tracks like the minimal, infectious "Wind Up," the slinky, sexy "Scare Me" and the brooding, bass-pop "Keep Cool" — which has got to be Shaggy's first appearance as anything other than a punch line in 15 years — make a convincing argument that the future is in good hands. It's too bad so many Bothans had to die so that we could find out.
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