The Central Executives - A Walk in the Dark (2014)

Whoever the Golf Channel label's Central Executives are, they have an exceptionally clear vision of the era of dance music they want to evoke — even if the period itself swims in a haze of spiked punch and poppers, its members-only clubs long ago converted to luxury condos and Duane Reades. The Execs' key touchstones are songs like Lola's "Wax the Van" and Loose Joints' "Pop Your Funk" — artifacts from the era in between disco and house, in which drum machines tangled with rolling congas and live keys, and four-to-the-floor grooves were only as steady as the hand holding the razor. A Walk in the Dark replicates the loosey-goosey feel of tape edits and percussion jams with rhythms that refuse to snap to any grid, and the singer's breathy, bluesy delivery only adds to the sense of slippage. Beneath it all, splotchy chords glisten like an oil slick, and the tonal center wanders all over the place in a way that feels almost non-hierarchical. As with any dance floor worth its salt, there's no one way to navigate it.