Seek Magic opens with a sparse, airy number that leaves you in suspense as to where the album’s going to go. Then the track ‘Bicycle’ hits and makes it clear that Seek Magic is going to be blissfully dancy.

The album’s eight tracks are engaging, artful dance music. There’s no strictly functional sounding of drums here. Memory Tapes mastermind Dayve Hawk is a real musician and not just a dance technician: he’s got serious skill at evoking aching, mournful moods and melodies and evolving a song through any number of forms till he’s got you feeling exactly the way he wants. On Seek Magic, he wants you feeling raw and dying to dance. Huge beats drop superbly hard and sudden. They drag you into movement. When Hawk lets the songs go, the electricity crackles, the pulse is incessant.

Seek Magic is easily one of the most tasteful, intelligent dance records of 2009.

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