The nu-disco dream-weaver Sorcerer is back with his first release in over three years, and he sounds as spellbinding as ever. Sorcerer is the solo alias of San Francisco’s Dan Judd, a member of the sun-kissed duo Windsurf (with Hatchback, a.k.a. Sam Grawe) and the equally atmospheric space-disco group Shock (with Michael Taras and Rubies’ Teri Lowenthal, Judd’s former bandmate in Call and Response). Last we heard from Sorcerer, he was taking the whole “desert island discs” concept literally: 2010’s Neon Leon (Tirk) sounded like the work of a guy left marooned with a stack of Jan Hammer, Alan Parsons Project, and Giorgio Moroder records (or, alternately, Tom Hanks drawing smiley faces on a disco ball).
On his new EP for Diskotopia’s A Kind of Presence sub-label, Judd sticks with the Balearic message-in-a-bottle theme. Hell, the opening track is called “Island Rescue.” That one’s a fuzz-soaked Afrobeat miniature filigreed with Durutti Column guitar leads and little pearls of dub delay; “Cobra Coven” is an easy-going disco jam that’s been singed by solar radiation, and “Heartbreakers,” the sweetest of them all, takes the breezy-listening vibes to balmy new heights. Remixes come from Myakkah and Greeen Linez, who up the oomph factor while keeping Sorcerer’s feet in the sand and his head in the clouds.
Stream the whole EP here; the record comes out March 4 on 12-inch vinyl and digital download.
