- Soaring emotions, breakbeat grandeur, and the occasional banjo on Nathan Micay's best record yet.
- Nathan Micay has always been a clubland enigma. He had a brief stint as a Mad Decent prodigy, a one-time side hustle as a personal trainer for the Berghain elite and he's currently an HBO soundtrack superstar. Throughout, he's traced a singular path through the music industry. But what's most striking about Micay's career is how every new stage connects with what came before. An emotional throughline runs from the Industry score to his first 12-inch of R&B vocal flips. His music is grand and dramatic no matter the context. He's been responsible for some absolute club anthems, but they're also tender and warm—it's hard not to feel like every one of your dreams is going to come true when you hear "Ecstasy Is On Maple Mountain." All of this sets the stage for To The God Named Dream, a career-spanning victory lap for Micay. Built around his usual soaring synths and stargazing arpeggios, it's also filled with nimble, clubbish rhythms and goofy sleights of hands.
Micay's music is a bit too bright and blocky to be folded into the current progressive revival (not to mention, he's been making this stuff long before the hipsters were scouring dollar bins for Global Underground CDs). On the one hand, there's hardly a single melody that doesn't reach for the tear ducts, but they're also just a little cheeky. Take early album highlight "Fangs." It starts out with a classic progressive chord progression over a teetering breakbeat—think of the melancholic euphoria that Bicep and Overmono can turn out in their sleep. But where those duos tend to veer towards the self-serious, halfway through Micay adds a guttural "Yeah" sample and guitar riffs ripped from a nu-metal b-side, which is very on brand for 2023.
Micay gets even more outlandish on "It's Recess Everywhere," as he mixes vinyl spinbacks, dueling banjo lines and soaring '90s house diva vocals. He builds this humor into the subtlest details, whether it's the sauntering Italo drum rolls in the otherwise straightforwardly prog title track or a sped-up, twangy mandolin lead that offsets the EDM-level build on "Don't Want to Say Goodbye." Micay doesn't shy away from the kitsch, instead using it to add vibrancy to the polished neon sound design, like some haute couture designer adding Dollar Tree sequins to make a dress pop.
Like 2019's Blue Spring, To The God Named Dream balances Micay's penchant for worldbuilding (as seen by his Akira homage) and his club sensibility (he's even talked about incorporating UK garage into his scoring work). On To The God Named Dream, he brings in this dance floor ethos in unexpected ways. "You Can't Win But You Can Lose" mixes '80s sci-fi seediness with the chuggy breakbeat of vintage trip-hop. Even on the almost ambient "My Sweat Dries With Heat," he adds a minute of drum fills and chopped vocals that wouldn't be out of place on a Hudson Mohawke record. These flourishes are a fitting homage to LuckyMe's early '10s glory days, when the post-dubstep era was starting to infiltrate the American rap mainstream.
These throwback references point to the fine line Micay walks, threading carefully between nostalgia and futurism, pastiche and homage, even the sincere and the silly. Just look at the tracklist, the vaguely mystical aphorisms ("When The Centre Doesn't Hold You're In Its Path") and millennial satire ("The Death of FOMO"). But, like all of his records, Micay always comes out on the right side (who else could get away with a trance remix of Canadian folk hero Gordon Lightfoot?). To The God Named Dream is both arrestingly emotional and undeniably fun, easily one of the best dance-not-dance records of 2023.
Tracklist01. My Sweat Dries With The Heat
02. We Can't Win But You Can Lose
03. If Wishes Were Fishes We'd All Cast Nets
04. Fangs
05. This Is Killing Your Gainz
06. To The God Named Dream
07. The Death Of FOMO
08. Hexagon Of Death
09. It's Recess Everywhere
10. When The Centre Doesn't Move You're In It's Path
11. Don't Wanna Say Goodbye