The Mauskovic Dance Band

About

" A hypnotic latin groove from another dimension "

Remember 2019? A more carefree era; heady days. Little wonder The Mauskovic Dance Band exploded onto the scene to immediate high demand. The brainchild of Nicola Niggebrugge, a Dutch producer and multi-instrumentalist, the quintet excels in melding tropical synths, space disco, no wave, and various Afro-Latin styles such as champeta, cumbia, and palenque.“Afro-Caribbean-inspired synth disco” is how one site  described their sound, a fitting description of their intoxicating, infectious grooves, technicolour neon bass, vibrant percussions, and slinky rhythms that sound like they were beamed in from another dimension.

For their second album ‘Bukaroo Bank’ – their self-titled debut was released in 2019 – they’ve changed focus slightly. In comes a second drummer, Chris Dunning (aka Juan Hundred), to bolster the beat, but so too does a wider palette of sonic influences. Reggae, dub, and even post punk loom large, with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry another new touchstone. The result is a more shadowy, darker sound, all spidery guitars and agitated drums. There’s also plenty of no-wave funk, electro-dancehall, stark samba, heavy low end, cut and echo-leaden vocals, drum pads, woozy synths, and plenty of yelps, sighs, and other twitchy vocal affectations.

The result is party music, but not as you know it. In fact, you could say it’s perfectly calibrated to our new reality: escapist, but with a hard-bitten edge; intoxicating, but with an anxious vibe floating overhead. The band always said they had one goal: to make people dance. And that’s still the case here, even though, as reality bites, the result is a little less hedonistic.