Los Angeles production duo Tyler Blake and Michael David achieved prominence through a constant presence on the internet remix circuit, but their tendency to reference and recontextualize runs deeper. Before the pair adopted the nostalgic-by-design Classixx moniker, they cranked out a few electro-chintz remixes as Young Americans, an assumed allusion to the classic David Bowie LP of the same name. The debut single from Blake's solo project Fingerpaint, last year's "Lunar", leaned heavily on a sample of Arthur Russell's "This Is How We Walk on the Moon". The cover of Classixx's debut LP, Hanging Gardens, is a double-vision homage to the sleeve for Tangerine Dream's 1988 album Optical Race, while its title track pilfers the melody of Fleetwood Mac's glistening Tango in the Night cut "Seven Wonders".
Internet-age producers who frequently create with others' raw materials aren't necessarily guaranteed a similar level of success when left to create worthwhile music on their own-- take last year's debut album from mashup outfit the Hood Internet, the astoundingly tepid FEAT. With Hanging Gardens, Blake and David soar above any low expectations; they've put together a cohesive, impossibly lush record that pays adequate lip service to a variety of pop sounds while loading the decks with glossy, head-cleaning dance. Classixx remixes frequently possess the slick expansiveness of disco, with a touch of nocturnal mood-shading to boot. By contrast, Hanging Gardens is bright, warm, and breezy, and as the summertime approaches, its release couldn't have come at a better time.
Classixx excel at creating a textured push-and-pull within the framework of their own productions, and Hanging Gardens provides several wordless moments to get lost in. Take the contemplative 4/4 of "A Fax From the Beach", which plays like a post-post-comedown sequel to Fred Falke's indelible, wistful 2008 single "808 PM at the Beach"-- as well as a killer transition or two, like when the rollin'-and-scratchin' bump of "Rhythm Santa Clara" gently bleeds into the declarative synth stabs that open up "Dominoes"' positive, propulsive Balearic structure. Album highlight "Holding On", meanwhile, elicits comparisons to Discovery-era Daft Punk, uncannily combining "One More Time"'s repetitive pulse with the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed purity of "Digital Love".
Classixx are very good producers-- their sonic excursions are placid and stylistically considered, with plenty of surface beauty, if not a ton of depth-- but the biggest surprise of Hanging Gardens is that they're great songwriters, too. It's astonishing how many of the guest appearances simply work, and in such a satisfying way, too: Take the all-caps kiss-off anthem "All You're Waiting For", featuring a typically tart vocal from ex-LCD Soundsystem member and DFA fixture Nancy Whang, and Sarah Chernoff's dizzying "A Stranger Love", reminiscent of Saint Etienne's glassy-eyed club gestures.
Jesse Kivel of L.A. electro-pop duo Kisses does effective mush-mouthed romanticism all over the palm-muted synths of "Borderline", while chillwave castrato Pat Grossi (whose monastic Active Child project has benefitted from Classixx's touch before) does his weightless choirboy thing over the airy bells of "Long Lost", an ethereal R&B-leaning tune that's a silkier, less pathos-heavy version of what AC did on 2011's just-okay You Are All I See. The record's most potent punch, ironically, is more than three years old: "I'll Get You", which saw release as a single in 2009 on the waning tastemaker imprint Kitsuné, wields Jeppe's brash vocal beams as an effective weapon, as the former Junior Senior vocalist asks repeatedly and somewhat ridiculously, "Do you like bass?" It shouldn't work, but it does, and pretty well.
More than anything else, the pure pop cuts on Hanging Gardens leave the listener wanting more, which is exactly the record's paradoxical flaw: although it runs to nearly an hour long, a good deal of space is relegated to the more instrumental cuts, which aren't quite distinctive enough to push the five-and-six-minute mark as they frequently do. The less impressive material loses its effectiveness when isolated from the sequencing of the album, which flows impressively as a front-to-back listen. Hanging Gardens is a decadent trifle to lose yourself in, a deceptively simple record that has the potential for great longevity.
