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 Caught in the Carousel "There will be music despite everything"
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Daniel Lenz
Stuck In A Dream
Psykohed Music
Daniel Lenz, the Minneapolis DJ turned producer, programmer, songwriter, and co-founder of both Psykosonik and Hednoize, released his debut solo album in March. It's still in my iPod. Stuck In A Dream is dynamic, trance-dance electronica with trip-hop, funk, jazz, and spaghetti western influences. It's the kind of music that gets under your skin when you least expect it, and the next thing you know, you're in motion. Lenz exhibits the same artisan's approach as Moby, but his style has a progressive flair and punch more akin to Jaytech, Oceanlab, Orkidea, Pendulum, and Quivver.
With 15 tracks, Stuck In A Dream avoids the dreariness often found in electronic music. Lenz combines, shreds, and re-assembles loops, plays with moods and tweaks samples into an elegant design. The first four tracks play with catchy trance rhythms and clever vocal loops, like "Check It Out" and "Stuck In A Dream," which invokes the ghost of Frank Zappa (we should be so lucky). "Push The Tempo" slips into a bass-heavy trip-hop, and "I'm Crazy" imports elements that would work in a 21st century Sergio Leone western. "Turn Around" is an earworm with a sinuous dance beat. "This And That" uses horn samples and a jazz-funkyness to pull the disco era into the present, and "That's The Way" imports a hint of Cuban Lounge ("yes, we're groovin' now"). "Give Me More" has an industrial, distorted edge. The final five tracks are dreamy and elegiac, and feature his former partners Brent Daniels (Hednoize) and Paul Sebastien (Psykosonik).
Stuck In A Dream is like a Ph.D. thesis in cool.
—Lyn Dunagan
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