Acid Klaus – Step On My Travelator: The Imagined Career Trajectory of Superstar DJ & Dance-Pop Producer, Melvin Harris Review

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Electro beats barking through a collaboration-heavy album mark Acid Klaus’ debut a real treat for those in touch with musical alliances. Step On My Travelator: The Imagined Career Trajectory of Superstar DJ & Dance-Pop Producer, Melvin Harris, should give away its twisted tongue-in-cheek style in the title. Travelling the music industry on a flatlining rotary walkway, Step On My Travelator boasts musical partnerships for Adrian Flanagan’s debut album, featuring a whole host of notable names. In doing that, this lengthy beast of a title and the tracks that appear on it are wholly grand and understated at the same time, a supreme mix for the Zen F.C. label to charge through with. Independent labels give an honesty and encouragement that Step On My Travelator finds frequently.

Opening, title track Step On My Travelator and Bad Club Bad Drugs Bad People feature no collaboration from outside the Acid Klaus unit but do provide the riffs and gifts to be expected of the group. I Used to be a DJ in a Club feels chillingly autobiographical, as broad a statement as the track makes. Those two tracks hold their own, one as an introductory bit of brilliance, the other a repetition-based burner that works well buried deep in the heart of the album. Great music comes from unlikely collaborations, though. It is why the likes of Richard Hawley and Maria Uzor make for such incredible surprises. There is an intense and rewarding unity featured on Acid Klaus’ debut work.

That unity, inspired collaborations from some of the best up-and-comers of the last few years (as well as one Pulp and Arctic Monkeys collaborating legend), boasts strong results. Composition is crucial to an album that benefits from an ensemble of musicians, and holding that together is Flanagan’s experimentation. Party Sized Away Day feels as though it is on the cusp of exploding into a grander realisation, but Flanagan does well to hold back and burn on a bit longer. Bethlehem or Bust benefits from Cat Rin’s lyrical presence falling into a deep and sickly cool blur of compositions, again from Flanagan. There is a mastermind behind the grander moments of Step On My Travelator. All roads lead to Flanagan and the tremendous efforts he makes in accommodating an album that features more collaborations than the average Gorillaz album. Blow Your Speakers is, as the title of a Soft Focus-featuring track suggests, a great idea.

Each track throughout this Acid Klaus debut is richly layered, engaged and has that sweet electropop quality. Loud enough to dance to, calm and refined enough to keep a lucid feel throughout its smartly wired lyrical accompaniments. Bad Club Bad Drugs Bad People gives a grand middle finger to the Tories and does so with style. Blunt and to the point with a bounce and electronic rhythm to it lingering on as a hook and sinker for the repetitive lyrics. Brilliant stuff, delivered with gruff vocal accompaniment from Flanagan. Elevate does exactly what it says on the tin, while Hawley and Hannah Hu mark a real highlight for an album littered with explosive interactions between promising musicians with something to say and prove.