Ford & Lopatin is Joel Ford, a member of Brooklyn soft-rock fetishists Tigercity, and Daniel Lopatin, the guy behind synth-drone project Oneohtrix Point Never. Until late last year, they went by Games, but after legal snags (or, as Lopatin referred to it on Twitter, a "shwagy situation"), they decided to keep it to their surnames.
Some of the duo's earliest releases came in the form of a series of mixtapes: the double-cassette Spend the Night With Games and the three-volume set Heaven Can Wait. Those tapes pointed to some of the influences that would materialize in their own tracks, exploring chopped-and-screwed 80s slow jams, glistening funk tracks, and turn-of-the-90s new age club hits. They also straddled the line between sincere appreciation and goofball irony, a characteristic which carried over to Games' sugary synth-pop debut EP, That We Can Play. The duo's penchant for sly irreverence came out in their Pitchfork interview last year, too, when Ford cited as one of their visual influences "anything that reminds us of our dads at work."
But despite these playful gestures, there's no messing around in what Ford & Lopatin do in the studio. While recording their debut album, Channel Pressure, F&L took their fondness for the sounds of the 1980s one step further and tracked the album at the studio of Jan Hammer, who composed the immortal "Miami Vice" theme. Accordingly, Channel Pressure is an impossibly slick and glossy record with sweet and sticky hooks that underscore the duo's talent for infusing pop songwriting with something beamed in from another era.
The last time the pair experimented with vocals was on That We Can Play's "Strawberry Skies", which featured fellow retro-futurist Laurel Halo; while that song was a little dry and inert, Channel Pressure's most straightforward moments shudder and gleam with propulsive melody (the wide-stride disco of "Joey Rogers") and jittery, squelched arrangements (album highlights "Too Much Midi (Please Forgive Me)" and "World of Regret"). The record's success owes a lot to its bold and clear vocals, handled by Ford and Jeff Gitelman of psychedelic soul revivalists the Stepkids. Their voices are often coated in electronic effects, but they move in and out of the music with a natural, brightly delivered pulse. The biggest surprise of all comes from avant-R&B weirdo Autre Ne Veut, who smooths out his wild delivery on the slow-burning "I Surrender".
The album would be tiring if were nothing but a sincere homage to the cheesy pop of yesteryear, but F&L temper Channel Pressure with abstract vocal exercises and overcast instrumentals to keep the balance right. This careful structure might owe something to the album's extremely loose concept (something about a cyberpunk named Joey Rogers). Still, some of the instrumentals come over as merely functional-- not bad, but also not exactly tracks you return to out of context-- so even though there are song-focused highlights, Channel Pressure is ultimately to be taken whole. And part of the fun is in tuning into the collective "ear" of its makers, and hearing these beautifully rendered 80s sounds the way one suspects they hear them. So it's funny and referential and sometimes not completely engaging, but it also feels celebratory. As suggested by the electronics obsession of the album cover, the world of Channel Pressure is overstuffed and ridiculous, but also an enticing invitation to plug in and drop out.
