Chromeo Talks New Album, Solange Knowles Collaboration, More

Photos by May Truong

David Macklovitch, 31, has a theory: Musicians and bands start to suck at album number three.

“There’s examples where the third album is the strongest,” the Montreal-Brooklyn transplant tells Paste, later citing Led Zeppelin’s III. “But I mean, I don’t know if you like Bad more than Thriller. Who likes Bad more than Thriller? I like Thriller more, and I think most of planet Earth agrees with me.”

While holed up in his Brooklyn studio with childhood best friend Patrick Gemayel, Macklovitch hopes to defy his own theory as the pair completes Business Casual,
the third studio effort of Prince-loving funk group, Chromeo.

With last year’s “Night by Night” still an indication of what’s to come, Business Casual—out Aug. 17 through Atlantic—also veers more into smooth-groove territory, as briefly visited in 2007 predecessor Fancy Footwork (“Momma’s Boy” and “100%”) and 2009’s DJ-Kicks collaboration (a cover of The Eagles’ “I Can’t Tell You Why”).

“Fancy Footwork was cool—I mean, I like that album a lot—but it was us still trying to hone in to that ’80s pop vibe,” Macklovitch says. “But now, we want to make you dance but also appeal to your emotions a bit, with stuff you can close your eyes and listen to for a little bit. You can always dance with your eyes closed; that’s always an option.”

In these songs that demonstrate (a bit) more courtly love, Macklovitch and Gemayel also decided to venture a bit into styles previously unexplored. The two of them drove to Philadelphia to record a strings session that would soon inject a disco vibe into the album. There, they had teamed with an arranger for the city’s Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, a ’70s producing duo who had worked with Michael Jackson and Teddy Pendergrass, among others.

By Macklovitch’s description, upcoming Business Casual single “When the Night Falls” sounds like Billy Ocean’s “Carribean Queen” meets Whitney Houston’s “How Will I Know?”. With help from Solange Knowles, that is. “It’s a really good two-stepping song, not too dancey,” Macklovitch explains. “It’s sort of a cute, romantic number and obviously, the chorus is a call-and-response between me and her. She sounds like Chaka Khan on there; it’s really cool.”

In addition to the album release, Macklovitch is eagerly anticipating Chromeo’s performance with Daryl Hall at Bonnaroo as well as his (Macklovitch) production for VEGA, a side project of Neon Indian’s Alan Polomo that younger brother A-Trak signed to Fool’s Gold . Polomo is “into a lot of stuff that I’m into as well, but I can’t really incorporate too heavily into Chromeo,” Macklovitch says. “A lot of synth-based music, but that’s not as dancey, like Yello. I love Yello, but I can’t do a lot of Yello influences in Chromeo.”

But before all of that goes down this summer and fall, Macklovitch wants to make sure that folks will still have fun listening to Business Casual—but not, perhaps, for the same reasons that they enjoyed Fancy Footwork. “It is a mature sound, but that really just means that, instead of wearing a leather jacket, I might wear a white suit,” Macklovitch says. “Both are funky.”

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