Let it be known that in these dwindling weeks of May, as the pollen bloomed and sucker punched the absolute shit out of anyone in its path, the best dance music of the year similarly came to blossom and multiply by force.

Just isolating last week, Hot Chip’s latest LP arrived on Monday after a three year silence with just a little more reaffirmation that yes, you should know Hot Chip way more beyond “Ready for the Floor”. The next day, Shamir put out the kind of self-assured, realized first album any kid with a stack of house singles would’ve killed to come up with. In the middle of this dance onslaught though, Unknown Mortal Orchestra slipped in with an advance of their 3rd effort, Multi-Love, and good lord, it might just be the surprise winner of the bunch.

To be honest, I’ve always kind of thought of UMO as just Tame Impala’s little brother, trailing off of the psych rock revival craze like smoke off the obligatory incense stick needed when putting on either of their first two LPs. Multi-Love, born from an extended polyamorous experience between frontman Ruban Nielson, his wife, and a mutual lover, is the kind of jolted experience that doesn’t entirely change the band’s DNA, but enhances it in every way possible. Nielson’s “multi-love” is not up for judgement on this LP; it’s here to be celebrated and celebrate it does.

I feel the truest test of whether a band has created a great dance record though is to show it to my dad. Yes, his knowledge is based largely off of his own days as his fraternity’s chief party DJ three decades ago and his criteria is mainly just the word “catchy”, but is that the bare essential for good dance music?

We listened to a good chunk of Multi-Love, which comes out today on Jagjaguwar, but we landed on “Can’t Keep Checking My Phone” as the favorite and topic of discussion this week.

#4 – Can’t Keep Checking My Phone by Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Dad: I thought that was pretty good actually! A little different, but it had a good beat and tune to it. [Both were] very bouncy. This sounds psychedelic, where that first song [“Multi-Love”] sounded like carousel music.

Tim: Carousel music?

D: You know, it went like up and down and… never mind. Maybe more like arcade music, like it had a marching thing to it? It reminded me of something that’d be in an old James Bond movie or It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Kinda groovy, you know? Couldn’t understand the lyrics on either one though.

T: I think you get a pass on not understanding them on first listen here. He put a lot of effects on his vocals.

D: That ending sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher. Wah wah wah wah… but yeah, if you said that was a guitar at one point in the song, I couldn’t identify it. I couldn’t tell if it a synthesizer or guitar actually. Either way, it had a very haunting sound to it.

T: [laughs] Every week, you’ve mentioned something being “haunting” about the song.

D: It’s not like “walking on sunshine” music here! And yeah, your music is sorta like, “burn some incense and put the [Christmas] lights on.” Like, mood music? [laughs]

T: I mean, I guess. Less poppy, not really super immediate sometimes? I was trying to meet you halfway this week though! I mean, I took your request for a dancier song. Did I succeed?

D: You did! This is definitely a party song.

T: Do you think this would have fit into your DJ sets back in college?

D: Yeah, this would’ve fit in! I mean, we always danced at our fraternity. This song’s very psychedelic, [whereas] we always played ‘80s stuff. Everything from Springsteen to Billy Idol to The Kinks. You know the song I played for you the other day? “They paved the parking lot on the land”… or “they put it over the parking lot.” I don’t remember [the lyrics of] it now. But, like, a-ha, The Tubes, all those good dancing bands.

T: Never heard of The Tubes. Are those on the tapes in the basement? 

D: Yeah, the “Dance Tunes” tapes! I have about five or six of them. We put it in the tape player, played it, and the girls all loved to dance the whole night. Instead of leaving to another fraternity party, they stayed because they loved to dance. I mean, there were couple of fraternities that were “dance fraternities”, but they just put on music and drank. We were the only ones with a dance floor and lights.

T: Now you can be as “old and cynical” as you want with this last question, but do you think my generation is lacking in, like, “radio dance music” like your generation had? 

D: You know, I would tend to agree with that. A lot of today’s songs are not dance songs. I mean, they’re party music, but not danceable. Your mother and I went to a wedding last night and the big dance songs… I couldn’t even remember their names, but they all had that same beat. It’s not like disco, but it’s like today’s disco. The big song was “Timber”, that Pitbull song with what’s her name… I don’t know any of their names. I mean, look at your music though! I don’t think m83 is danceable; they’re just, like, background listening. Arcade Fire? I mean, is that danceable?

T: Oof… okay, you’re trying to nail it home. I mean, yeah, Arcade Fire’s got quite a few dance songs. Their last album was, like, Bowie worship, but I get what you’re trying to say. I argue that you have to look for dance music that’s rooted in rock now. Like, [Unknown Mortal Orchestra] is fairly successful in some circles, but nowhere near Pitbull levels.

D: I get that. I mean, this is good. Could hardly understand the lyrics and I feel like I need that for proper analysis, but at the same time, I couldn’t tell you half the lyrics to “Jump” [by Van Halen] sometimes, but it’s got my favorite chorus. But yeah, this song… I think they might make it. They could make it mainstream.

T: Yeah?

D: It was different, but it wasn’t bland. It wasn’t that same beat and three chords. It’s moody, but dance floor music, so it’s multi-functional.

T: “Multi-Love”, one might say?

D: [laughs] And there you go, you dork.

This interview was edited for length, clarity, and certain details my father did not want published because of the dorky, brotherly oath he took as a frat boy. Ugh.