The Juan MacLean
Less Than Human
Release Date: Aug 9, 2005
Genre(s): Indie, Rock, Electronic
Record label: Astralwerks / DFA
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Album Review: Less Than Human by The Juan MacLean
Excellent, Based on 3 Critics
Based on rating 4/5
Electronic music has a long and noble tradition of encouraging grown men to pretend that they are robots. Following in the automated footsteps of Kraftwerk and Daft Punk comes the Juan Maclean, who, as plain old John Maclean, played guitar in a little-heard 1990s Rhode Island electro-rock band called Six Finger Satellite. Now under the wing of the dizzyingly hip DFA label, he has a new lease of life.
Based on rating 8/10
During the majority of the '90s, John Maclean was a central member of Six Finger Satellite, one of the most unique bands to plant itself in the post-punk continuum. The post-punk continuum was neither popular nor prone to faded facsimile during these years. Maclean became increasingly frustrated and checked out. DFA's James Murphy, who had done live sound and production work for the band, eventually coaxed Maclean (with help from label and studio partner Tim Goldsworthy) to become involved with music again.
Opinion: Excellent
The Juan Maclean's debut album Less Than Human may be the closest that DFA records will get to a mission statement without the unsightly clutter of words. All metallic clatter, moogy squeals and coke-nosed loops, it fuses disco decadence and record-collector erudition without taking sides: raw rhythms garlanded with machine noise. At the helm is John Maclean, multi-instrumentalist and arguably the third stakeholder in the DFA franchise alongside the bearish James Murphy and bespectacled Tim Goldsworthy.
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