It’s currently wet and uncharacteristically cloudy in Southern California but one quick dive into Dante Elephante’s new album Mid-Century Modern Romance and you’ll feel as if you are beach-bound on a gorgeous summer day. A mainstay in the Los Angeles and Santa Barbara art scenes, the eccentric podcaster and multi-instrumentalist makes funkified West Coast pop songs. His third full-length LP is loaded with infectious guitar licks, slick percussion, and rich keyboard textures that evoke the breezy feeling of cruising around with your windows-down on a clear day by the coast. As a songwriter, Elephante approaches different facets of modern love with a go-for-it mentality, electing to dance his way through the mysteries of romance rather than wallow in them. The production and arrangements on midtempo grooves, such as “E-Motion” and “Las Vegas,” are laid back and well-suited to Elephante’s affectionate falsetto, though his charm shines just as brightly on vivacious and forthright love songs, like “Find Somebody to Love” and the Isley Brothers-esque “Jeni.” From start to finish, Mid-Century Modern Romance is a fresh and feel-good album with a sound and message that offers warm relief from last year’s gloomy sense of confinement.
Purchase and stream Dante Elephante’s new album Mid-Century Modern Romance out everywhere on Born Losers Records.
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