Michoacan - In the Dark of the Night

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  • The recently released video for Michoacan's "In the Dark of the Night" is like visual onomatopoeia—the exact series of images that ought to come with such a loose-jointed psych-disco jam. A sweaty mess of slow motion dancers, condensation on glass, refracted psychedelic colours and indeterminate disco-ball glimmers perfectly accompany Fernando Miranda Rios' sprawling composition, which, according to the sleeve notes, was "recorded at [his] mom's house (under some very suspicious circumstances)." Cosmic disco has been a common thread for many of Michoacan's previous releases for Grayhound and Tiny Sticks, but this DFA debut sees him adopting a much woollier production style. A drink-spiked wooziness warps and fragments the opening melody, before it unfolds into a 100 BPM tempo, with a reggae-inflected bassline, live drums and Rios' layered half-spoken vocals contributing the grit, while disco synth trails and starbursts rain down from above. If the original is the shuffling and stoned disco maestro at the tail end of a lost weekend, the B-side remix from Italy's Clap Rules is its showered, shaved and sober alter ego. A grinding electro-disco bass, wah-wah guitars, handclaps and bongo breakdowns swallow much of the shambolic charm of the original, and it's more than a little DFA-by-numbers, but it serves as a more accessible option for those who prefer their disco well-lit and well-mannered.
  • Tracklist
      A In the Dark of the Night B In the Dark of the Night (Clap Rules Remix)
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