Mary B. James Album

Fancy Mike, who was the first artist to sign to Canadian imprint King Deluxe back in 2010, dropped his latest LP, Mary B. James, just this week, and has shared the title track off that album to mark the occasion. Although Fancy Mike describes the music as “Midwest minimal,” “Mary B. James” radiates tropical heat from elements that don’t quite bring to mind corn fields—like, say, the steel drums and clattering percussion which dance alongside buttery synth swells and subdued bass tones. - XLR8R

Fancy Mike returns to Canada’s King Deluxe label with a clutch of sideward synth cues and offbeat drum programming. At times he sounds like Kuedo ‘Vangelis Horse’, at others going for the Giallo style ‘VVVV, 1977?, and others like Dylan Ettinger on ‘Alien vs Predator’ or even Michael Diekmann on the curiously exotic arrangement of ‘Pink Flamingo’. Really good stuff. - Boomkat

Kids stuck on purple could be awed into a world of neon lights and dark nights, that slip into psychedelic dreams surrounded by tropical things. The softmore album Mary B. James, by Fancy Mike explores sounds that are tirelessly illuminating a less than bright backdrop of post electro, and retro 80?s pop that is as minimal as it is hedonistic. A sheer contrast to his debut LP Madison Square Gardner, a heavily layered and complex release, Mike practices self restraint on Mary B. James, imagining the possibility of this album being performed live. Overall this new approach makes his music more approachable, but without compromising the structure of his work. This experimental retro-pop album is rich and saturated, practically dripping with lush synthesis, the persistence warmth of bass and digital horns that run like a less bluesy interpretation, and at times feels like bits from the Blade Runner soundtrack (Vangelis). Fancy Mike goes even further to enforce the sounds of an era on “Miami Vice”, an ode to Ferrari Daytona’s, and Testarossa’s, Colombian cocaine and white blazers. While it’s completely unfair to make any comparisons to any post-pop culture themes, they simply serve as a reference. Ripping a slice out of time, not borrowing any of the sounds or running themes at all, but instead owning them. - Futurobeat

A ride from the beach to the city in a Lamborghini sounds fun enough as it is, but what would send it into pleasure overdrive is if you were doing it in an animated, 80s-sheen world that turns extra psychedelic right when you make it into town. Throw in the power of invisibility and an oversized baseball hat, and you’re living “Miami Vice,” the new video from Fancy Mike by animator Alexandre Louvenaz. The aesthetic of intense neon colors on a black background goes from a more simple video-game-style visual to something a bit more sinister and psychedelic—animals, demons, and monsters popping out left and right, until you finally blast off into the cosmos. Oh yeah, and there is a gang of angry-looking unicorns in there as well, looking like Lisa Frank’s worst nightmare. We recently featured Fancy Mike’s “Ramachandran” in our LAYERS column. His new album Mary B. James, named in reference to Aphex Twin’s classic Richard D. James, is even more stripped down than his previous work, packed with infectious 80s style bangers that you’ll fall in love with, particularly if you dug the soundtrack from Drive… - The Creators Project

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