Limited You Must Be Dreaming

New Jersey / New York based project LIMITED plays a brand of dream pop that's heavy on the pop, albeit a highly mechanical version of it. It's a sound built on contrast; a juxtaposition of the mechanized, danceable grooves of New Romantic synth funk-pop and walls of noise-gaze guitar layers. While these sources may be somewhat at odds with one another (music for dancing vs. music named after gazing at one's shoes), Limited's debut single splits the difference between them, and arrives at a pop hybrid that calls to mind early Madonna singles had they been a collaboration with Psychocandy-era Jesus and Mary Chain. This "double A-sided" single, released on fellow NJ-native Matthew Mondanile's (Ducktails, Real Estate) New Images imprint, features "You Must Be Dreaming" b/w "New Day Rising": two pop anthems which shroud sequenced rhythms and bubblegum choruses in a thick sheet of warm static that runs through the whole thing. The "Hi-NRG" arrangement style injects some welcome liveliness into an otherwise often sleepy genre. Meanwhile, the filter of static abstraction forces the listener to dig just a little deeper for the hooks, making them all the more rewarding.