In a Dream

In A Dream is undoubtedly the most confident and comfortable The Juan MacLean has sounded.

With In A Dream, Maclean and Whang have crafted some of most expertly tuneful music of their career.

If you want a nocturnal classic packed to the brim with contemporary disco genius, this is the record you need to buy.

It’s an album that will make your heart swell with joy in a club or will make your lip quiver with emotion on headphones in your bedroom. There are few dance producers who possess the skills to harness both these feelings and John Maclean has managed this masterfully here.

It puts together all the elements they've worked with in the past and added a few more, and the result is an emotionally powerful work that sounds great and is easy to dance, dream, or get bummed along to.

Things work best when the musical surroundings match their respective vocal style and they create something resembling the cinematic edge of Johnny Jewel's Chromatics. [Oct 2014, p.93]

Sparkling arpeggios and sublime atmospherics undercut the loneliness and desperation in MacLean and Whang’s singing (the latter’s is the stronger of the two’s), giving tension to the confident and frequently beautiful production.

This is music that takes your head to other times and places, that will make you feel like you're living inside a video game, or in the stratosphere. [Sep/Oct 2014, p.76]

The music the two make has taken a huge creative leap forward. [Oct 2014, p.100]

It's clear that MacLean and Whang have never sounded better. [Oct 2014, p.112]

It’s thirty five years of dance music history wrapped up in a glorious fifty minutes and with Whang at the helm, it’s encased with an icy sheen, impossible to resist.

And while that album [Less Than Human] started the ethereal journey, In a Dream powers those elements into something superhuman.

In A Dream is Maclean and Whang's most fruitful, balanced partnership, and if it fails to truly make a star out of either of them, it cements them as the kind of ever-evolving collaboration DFA was built on.

In A Dream is certainly not going to alienate those who adored The Future Will Come, yet it should be said there are notable points of evolution--most importantly Whang's prominence and the diversity of Maclean's songwriting. But it is difficult to place this above The Future Will Come, as despite the brilliance that Whang radiates throughout, there are up to three songs that sap momentum with their lack of vim.

The longer cuts here have some great ones. It's just the kind the Juan MacLean crafts seem to work best with plenty of room to wriggle and stretch. [No. 113, p.57]

In A Dream ain’t no slouch, but is better piece-by-piece than a continuous flow.

MacLean and his collaborators have mastered some but not all of the familiar DFA bag of tricks.

It's hard to really connect with most of In A Dream; not only does it play through as tirelessly, tiringly arch, many of the songs just don't quite cut it. [Nov 2014, p.76]

The album improves halfway through, settling into a spacier late-night feel: retro electronic drums sprinkled over better tunes, with chunky bass and the twin male and female vocals more relaxed.