Morgan Geist: Double Night Time

As part of the storied dance-music duo Metro Area,

Morgan Geist has become famous for crafting rich, immaculate disco of a kind

that barely existed back when disco thrived. His solo work tends toward more

electronic moods, but Double Night Time answers to the same habit for all those

things that make disco scan: patient rhythms, organic drum sounds, decorous

strings, and especially a sense of space to let things breathe and take shape

as songs instead of just simple dance tracks.

Most of that figured into the early days of

techno, too, and Geist makes his allegiance to the creation story known in the

album-opening "Detroit," a sleek, gliding night drive in something like a Fiero

with the interior of a Rolls-Royce. Geist's elegant production suits the voice

of Junior Boys' Jeremy Greenspan, who sings most of the songs here—all

with a sort of hush that sounds simultaneously reverent and heartbroken. No

part of stately songs like the instrumental "Nocebo" and especially the

would-be pop hit "Ruthless City" sounds desperate for attention, but they pay

attention back with warm details that prove all the more wowing for their

restraint.