For a certain cross-section of dance music and hip-hop heads, AraabMuzik’s 14-years-in-the-making Electronic Dream 2 might as well be Chinese Democracy. Which makes the original something like Appetite for Destruction. Electronic Dream was an over-the-top portrait of a sound—in this case, sappy trance with acrobatic MPC work over top—that landed at just the right moment, at the height of EDM’s mainstream takeover in 2011. A promised sequel was leaked, then relegated to an obscure EP series called MVP of the MPC. Other tracks trickled out and AraabMuzik continued his day job as a pretty damn good rap beatmaker. (More recently, he scored a Harmony Korine film.) Now, out of nowhere, we get the definitive Electronic Dream 2, whose paranoid, swooning first single, “3AM,” beckons us into the overstimulated underbelly of stadium-sized dance music all over again.
The first Electronic Dream was a low-key masterpiece that sent AraabMuzik to huge festival stages. He finger-drummed wildly over garish EDM beats, wowing audiences with his dexterity and preternatural sense of rhythm on even the most straightforward beats. The album rocketed the former Dipset affiliate to a level of fame he might never have reached if not for the mainstream dance music maelstrom. It also came at a time when underground rap producers like Clams Casino were making names as artists in their own right, as beats like “I’m God” tunneled a hole through hip-hop and helped turn weirdos like Lil B into overground stars.
Like Clams’ Instrumental Mixtape, Electronic Dream was a hip-hop beat tape accidentally elevated to the status of a statement album. Its success came down to mass appeal: the muscular MPCs and undeniable hooks made its tracks catnip for rap fans and rappers alike, while the way AraabMuzik turned the most maudlin of trance music into stylish, often abrasive hip-hop appealed to underground dance music heads who prefer their beats with a little grit. No matter what angle you were approaching from, the combination of drum-machine fireworks, candy-sweet vocal hooks, and dreamy synths was just right for the moment.
The sequel, then, is a bit like a specimen encased in amber. Electronic Dream 2 comes straight from a time when kids were rinsing Kavinsky’s “Nightcall” off the Drive soundtrack, everything was bathed in bisexual lighting, and the Weeknd was sampling Beach House. Kicking off with a breathy chopped vocal and spring-loaded trap drums in “Someone Like You,” AraabMuzik moves like no time has passed at all. It’s instant gratification followed by a hint of numbness, like unwrapping exactly the gift you asked for and realizing that what you’d really wanted was a little surprise. There are no real missteps on Electronic Dream 2—but there are boring stretches where the sound starts to wear thin, including the six-minute single “3AM.” It sounds beautiful at first, but no matter how long you wait for a bass dive or a mood swing, it just floats, glassy-eyed.
