Alain Macklovitch is a young dude with a musical career that already spans a decade and a half and has gone through several distinct phases. He started out as a baby-faced turntablist savant who won the most prestigious DJ competition in the world before he could legally drive a car. After that came the Sunglasses Is a Must era, where he left the insular world of turntablism for a gig as Kanye's tour DJ, and to figure out how to incorporate his hip-hop-derived skills into the emergent post-indie dance music culture. We are now well into phase three, where he established himself as a legitimate EDM heavyweight with at least one certified rave anthem ("Barbra Streisand", which he recorded with Armand Van Helden under the name Duck Sauce) under his belt, as well as an eye for talent that's made Fool's Gold, the label he runs with the DJ/producer Nick Catchdubs, one of the most influential indies in the music business.
Phase-three A-Trak is not only the most successful of his incarnations but also by far the funnest. The turntablist scene he came up in has a marked tendency to emphasize technical chops over pleasure, but over the years he's evolved into a full-on hedonist who's not afraid to skirt the line of what some might call cheesiness, and has fully embraced the place in arena-filling quasi-mainstream EDM culture that "Barbra Streisand" helped earn him.
After years of near-constant gigging in nearly every shape and size of venue imaginable, Macklovitch has developed a very clear idea of what qualities a song needs to move a crowd, and his new four-song EP is definitely intended to put that knowledge to work producing yet another signature track capable of making tens of thousands of people lose their shit at the same time.
It's possible that either "Jumbo" or "Disco Nap" could end up being that track. The former, produced with the Swedish EDM supergroup Galantis, has a frenetic, 90s-cyberpunk feel, and enough tweaky rhythmic breakdowns to appeal to an audience predisposed to dubstep. The latter, a collaboration with LA DJ duo Oliver, offers a popping electro-funk groove, acid-house-style buildups, and a vocal hook that pays tribute to the popular and highly recommended practice of getting a nap in before going clubbing.
But odds are it'll be either "Tuna Melt" or "Landline" that becomes the kind of inescapable song that’ll show up in every set of a multiple-DJ bill without anyone in the crowd complaining. Both are precisely engineered to move bodies, to the point where it almost feels manipulative and unfair, as if you barely have a choice in the matter. Aspiring dance music producers should consider drawing out diagrams for their structures to learn where to add sounds, where to take them away, when to switch the tone of the synth playing the lead melody, and other essential qualities that a rave anthem needs.
"Landline", a collaboration with production duo GTA, has several lessons to impart, including how one can manipulate a retro sound like a booming 90s-style synth piano using modern ideas such as the glitchy clusters of notes popular with trap music producers, or where to shift the gears on the tempo from half-time to double-time (and where to shift back), as well as the potential of a ridiculous sample (in this case of Woody Woodpecker's laugh) to push a song well over the edge of sanity.
"Tuna Melt" is as immaculately and meticulously crafted as one of his DMC-winning turntablism sets. There isn't a superfluous sound in its nearly six minute span, nothing-- from the stunningly simple but inescapable main riff to the chopped-up, diva-style female vocal sample-- that doesn't have a clear role in motivating the listener to dance. It has the ruthlessly efficient grace of an Alien xenomorph, and it doesn't require any chemical assistance to move an EDM fan to a place of total rave bliss. I suspect Macklovich won't have to write another arena-sized anthem for at least a few more years.
