Ford & Lopatin - Channel Pressure (2011) [Software] // Grade: A

Following a name change to Ford & Lopatin, the Brooklyn duo known previously as Games launch a full blown synth pop reverence campaign with their debut album, Channel Pressure. The duo’s playful side runs the show, on an album of excess.

Channel Pressure is nostalgia mining at its best. If you don’t get it, it’s probably because you weren’t a child of the ’80s. Linked to a loose narrative of kid vs. evil robots and super-computers, Channel Pressure is the imaginative synopsis of our collective childhood experience, in that certain time. Synthesizers propel themselves across a field of classic video game sounds. Vocals steeped in effects fill in the gaps on fourteen tracks of retro-future themes expressed through pop melody.

An album with these sorts of themes could go sour, very quickly. Luckily, Ford & Lopatin are excellent producers and able to explore kitsch through confident, and elevated sounds. The album’s title track glides on smooth R&B, the sound of cruising Miami streets in late afternoon, a sticky warm prequel to the night ahead. “Joey Rogers” summons a languid synth crescendo that peaks with pop falsetto vocals.

It’s these sorts of vocal stylings culled from pop’s past that provide Channel Pressure‘s surprising charm. “Emergency Room” marries robotic vocalizations and storytelling while “Too Much MIDI (Please Forgive Me)” is the album’s standout with its breezy meets upbeat sound. Guest vocals from avant R&B weirdo Autre Ne Veut on “I Surrender” are a perfect example of Ford & Lopatin’s talent for creating smart music, capable of referencing the past while remaining firmly in tune with the pulse of the present.

- Scrooge McFuck