Based on the Internet’s reaction to Jam City’s divergence in style for Dream a Garden, I half expected the record to be a collection of Renaissance lute songs or a choral Mass. Alas, no. Indeed, the album is a far cry from the industrial rigidity of Classical Curves, but the widespread surprise that such a prolific producer of dance music is also capable of playing a guitar and creating something more delicate is more baffling than the album itself.

In fact, the album is extremely relatable. The aloof precision that characterises the majority of Night Slugs releases is nowhere to be seen. Instead, Dream a Garden is woozy and melancholic, an aural embodiment of a listless, languid city summer, perfectly captured in the dreamy synths, sweetly metallic guitar licks and that magnificently languorous pitch bend that opens ‘Good Lads, Bad Lads’. This isn’t to say that his Night Slugs roots have been completely forsaken though. While Jack Latham’s own shy, reverb soaked vocals are suppressed in the mix, keeping the listener at arm’s length, the roaring, distorted percussion saturating the record has a visceral quality, keeping us firmly in the present and stopping the record from becoming too pensive. Melodious yet stark, this is the record to tide us over until Jai Paul puts us out of our misery and finally releases an album.

80’s funk has clearly been an influence on tracks such as ‘The Garden Thrives’ – where a defiant guitar riff transcends the thundering percussion – and the sassy rhythms of ‘Today’. This track is a highlight, a rich knitting of vocals and contrasting melodic and rhythmic fragments culminating in a gloriously cacophonous instrumental section, a musical representation of the barrage of depressing pop-up advertisements obscuring the home page of Jam City’s website. Compare this visual statement with lyrics (if you can unpick them from Latham’s stifled vocals) commenting on consumerism and technology-dependence, and you begin to see through the vaguely hopeful melodies and recognise this as, more than anything else, a shrewdly subtle protest record.

Charlotte Bickley