Transatlantic house duo Digital Analog Hotel open for business on Friday 4th September with their debut album Late Checkout.
Digital Analog Hotel is James Hancock and Dan Turner, two producers, musicians and friends who met while working in a recording studio. Making music together initially presented a challenge, as Dan lives in Colchester and James, originally from Essex, is now based in Los Angeles. But despite the 5000-mile gap, the pair formed Digital Analog Hotel in late 2019, sending Logic project files back and forth across the Atlantic as they developed songs and perfected their sound.
“We wanted to emulate the vibe of those classic dance records, but also incorporate the production values of contemporary dance music.”
Digital Analog Hotel
As you can hear, the success of this approach is immediately apparent on opening track, ‘Come on Over’, a beat that recalls the seminal UK garage records of the early ’00s while finding room for an early-‘90s-style sax, thoroughly contemporary synth sound, and soulful lead vocal. The record ends with the anthemic ‘Keep on Liftin’’, a hands-in-the-air declaration of positivity that recalls the uplifting vibes of acid house. Late Checkout has echoes of another time, bringing to mind everything from ‘RIP Groove’ to ‘Gypsy Woman’ to ‘Movin’ too Fast’, while filtering these influences through a contemporary lens. It’s a laudably coherent, impressively accomplished sound coming from a duo based on different continents who haven’t yet been making music together for a full year.