Matthew Flores
Wonderfully inventive to make a dance album with songs that have to do with the Pandemic. 2020 is a sucky year, but this offering from Chromeo makes things go down more smoothly. "Clorox Wipe" is absolutely charming!
Favorite track: Clorox Wipe.
All proceeds from this sale will be donated to Know Your Rights Camp's COVID-19 Relief Fund.
credits
released June 12, 2020
Legendary funklordz Chromeo present Quarantine Casanova, an EP of five new tracks written and recorded under lockdown, today. In solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and in recognition of COVID-19’s disproportionate impact on Black and POC communities, 100% of the proceeds from digital downloads, physical sales and merch will be donated to Colin Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp COVID-19 Relief Fund. Chromeo is also working on an animated short for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, to accompany the EP and raise awareness about mental health issues surrounding the global pandemic.
“Honestly, it started as a joke,” says Chromeo frontman Dave 1. “At the beginning of quarantine, we hunkered down in our studio, freestyled a song called ‘Clorox Wipe’ and posted it online to cheer people up. The response was overwhelming. So we wrote another one, and another one. Fans kept asking if we were going to release them for real, so after a couple of weeks, we obliged.” “As usual, it’s a high brow-low brow thing with us,” adds synth master P-Thugg. “These are obviously the funniest tracks we’ve ever written, but they connected in such a visceral way. We figured if we were to put them out, there would have to be a charity and an awareness component.”
The band took two weeks to properly record and produce the tracks, and Quarantine Casanova was born. With titles like “6 Feet Away” and “Stay In Bed (And Do Nothing)” the songs touch on all the topics du jour, including paper towel shortages, social media cooking crazes, avoiding Zoom meeting and yelling at people who don’t wear masks. But they’re also disarmingly honest about anxiety, depression and existential ennui. Set to Chromeo’s signature catchy melodies and analog grooves, they happen to be the funkiest synth jamz this side of 2020.
The EP is the first new music from Chromeo since 2018, when their fifth album Head Over Heels was released to critical acclaim. Since then, the duo has kept busy with two years’ worth of shows and more recently, the launch of their very own label Juliet Records, which will see the release of inaugural signee Ian Isiah’s forthcoming AUNTIE project this summer. This marks a new chapter for the band, and the first time they’re stepping out to produce and mentor other artists.
Chromeo is the Grammy-nominated duo of Montreal natives and high school best friends David “Dave 1” Macklovitch and Patrick “P-Thugg” Gemayel. The group — now 15 years into their storied career — rose to prominence with their seminal 2007 release Fancy Footwork, heralding the dawn of the ‘80s electro-funk revival. Their five LPs have been hailed as modern funk masterworks and Chromeo has toured the world over.
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