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In Rotation: ‘Harvest Moon’ by Poolside

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This post has been corrected. Please see note at bottom for details.

True to its breezy, summery name, Poolside has created a sound it calls Daytime Disco that sounds like ‘80s dance and funk grooves combined with the lyrics of 1970s soft-rockers Toto.

The hybrid vibe of the L.A.-based duo of Filip Nikolic and Jeffrey Paradise, a mix of easy listening with funky bass lines sometimes rolling out as 6-minute jams, has a pretty decent pedigree. Danish-born Nikolic was formerly the touring bass player in the Danish pop band Junior Senior, and then the bass player in Ima Robot. He connected with Paradise, a DJ formerly in the San Francisco group the Calculators and connected to dance parties Blow Up and Club 1994, to form a disco side project. They released an EP in 2010 called “Do You Believe.”

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On Poolside’s debut album, “Pacific Standard Time,” the lush synths, dance-heavy drums and bass and falsetto-adorned music of the track “Harvest Moon” pull the listener into a world where pools, sun and piña coladas are only minutes away, like a party where the Free Design meets G-Funk. On their Facebook page, the pair describe their sound as “Great friends, good music, California, and mezcal.”

Fans of Dam-Funk, James Pants and other throwback 1980s funk revival artists will feel right at home with Poolside -- its sound is all wet drum claps, saturated basslines and an airy falsetto. And no track displays this better than “Havest Moon,” a Neil Young cover that transform the song from folk ballad to summertime disco.

[For the Record: 3:40 p.m. June 28: An earlier version of this post implied that this is a review of the full album, “Pacific Standard Time,” instead of a review of the track “Harvest Moon.”]

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