Album Review: Hanging Gardens by Classixx

The opening and title track of the debut by LA-based DJ and production team Classixx is an elegant, spaced-out disco romp that swims and swirls around a melodic refrain lifted from the Sandy Stewart–penned 1987 Fleetwood Mac single “Seven Wonders. ” It’s a perfect liftoff for Hanging Gardens because just like the Mac’s seminal Tango in the Night, the album is slated for release just in time for summer and you’d be hard-pressed to find a more shimmering or sunnier pool party soundtrack. Lead single “Holding On” is an irresistible keyboard-driven dance floor igniter that’ll most certainly be oozing out of iPods on beaches east to west.

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The Los Angeles duo Classixx first surfaced with their "I'll Get You" single in 2009, a bouncing neo-disco jammer that featured vocals from Junior Senior's Jeppe and a chorus that tended to get lodged in one's brain for hours at a time. After that they did some remixes, but nothing much else until the release of the Hanging Gardens LP in spring of 2013. To say that the album fulfills the promise of that first single is dead right.

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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".

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