Live Review: The Juan Maclean with Marcus Marr and Pressha at Nectar Lounge 1/9/16

There are few better ways to ring in the new year than staying up until 2am dancing incessantly to furious house music. Thankfully for us, John MacLean and Marcus Marr agree with us, and this week's The Juan MacLean show at the Nectar Lounge was a pretty fantastic way to kick off another year of live entertainment. The band dropped their latest LP back in 2014 with In A Dream on DFA, but since then, John has been DJing around the globe, showing off new creations and old favorites alike in sparkling fashion. John may have warned us with his Midnight In A Perfect World set for the KEXP only a day before, but at the Nectar Lounge, he brought relentless magic for a show unlike anything else. Together with rising production wunderkind Marcus Marr, The Juan MacLean kicked off 2016 by taking the Nectar and tearing the roof off.Song by song, London-based producer Marcus Marr only becomes more impressive. 2013's "The Music" kicked off his more public presence, but since then, it's been one single after another, stepping up the ladder into the larger public eye. Marr kicked 2015 off with "Brown Sauce", a delectable DFA 12" single, and he ended it with Work a collaborative EP with popular house's man of the hour, Chet Faker. No more proof of this rising acclaim was needed than that we witnessed at the end of his set here at the Nectar. As the needle dropped (or rather, the CD-J kicked up the tune) on one of Work's best cuts, cheers erupted from audience in recognition and laudatory approval. After an hour of bulletproof house magic, it was fun to get to see Marr look up from the table and see faces singing along. Slow and steady, Marcus Marr is making his way up and bringing new fans along the way.

Marcus Marr:

Second only to the recently returned LCD Soundsystem (with whom the band shares vocalist and synth legend Nancy Whang), The Juan Maclean ride DFA's top tier of bands. John Maclean has been making house magic for ten years under the moniker. On Less Than Human, he started with a four to the floor foundation that kept things close to home (James Murphy and Nancy Whang both lent vocals to the record). With The Future Will Come, more extensive vocals from Nancy brought the band into more melodic new wave territory, with Human League-esque singles like "One Day". And now, with his third proper LP (proper being used in an extremely loose tense here - he has plenty of other stand alone singles, EPs, and conglomerations of alternates and remixes) In A Dream, he shows that he's nowhere near finished expanding the horizons of what the band can be. This fact is perhaps seen best in the live context, where John takes front and center and knits his creations in and out of other house favorites to make for a blistering scorcher of a set.

Letting all hesitation to the wind, MacLean dropped a fiery remix of "A Simple Design" only two songs into his ninety minute set. While the presentation before us was limited to a DJ set, Nancy Whang's impeccable voice still made her presence known. Between her work with Juan MacLean and as a guest for the likes of Classixx, I can't think of a more lovable and accessible voice in the dance scene, and it's clear that John doesn't take her for granted. The crowd went nuts, of course, putting both levels of the Nectar Lounge into a frenzy for the following hour and a half. And somewhere through the sweat and steam (the Nectar's roll-up garage door is a godsend for this type of shindig), John was up there, working through tracks like a timeless professional, showing off exactly why The Juan MacLean always belongs in the same sentence as Hot Chip, LCD Soundsystem, and the rest of DFA's best. His set here tonight was second to none.

The Juan Maclean:

The Juan Maclean's return record In A Dream is out now on DFA. Marcus Marr's excellent Work EP with Chet Faker is out on Downtown.