Gang Gang Dance's Cosmic Chill Returns With 'Lotus'

The collective unconscious of noise often reshapes psychic mirror-balls of electronic dance music every five or ten years. You twiddle with enough knobs and buy so many synths that, eventually, a fractured groove locks into place. Just ask Animal Collective or Black Dice. But sometimes, that dancey noise turns into genuine pop music that's bent just askew.

Gang Gang Dance's transformation from collage-heavy, weirdo noise into cosmic pop truly coalesced with 2008's "House Jam," a resplendent encapsulation of psychedelic Brooklyn at that time — dreamy, dubby dance music reset for the loop-happy raver crowd.

Seven years past its last record, Gang Gang Dance is coming back from hiatus with Kazuashita, the new album produced by keyboardist Brian DeGraw. The first single, "Lotus," sounds like the chillest of screensavers look: pale blues and bright purples, dripping synths and echoing guitar over a bobbing trip-hop beat dubbed from a VHS tape. It's like Gang Gang Dance picked up where it left off, especially as Lizzi Bougatsos' voice winds through the track, elastic as ever, soon melting into blissful disarray.

Kazuashita comes out June 22 via 4AD Records.

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