Quantic - Dancing While Falling (2023) [Hi-Res]

The new album by Quantic - aka multi-instrumentalist, DJ, composer and producer Will Holland - is in many ways an evolution. Now 20 years into his career, Dancing While Falling is the British-born New York-based artist’s most live-sounding, euphoric and, in his own words, grown-up release to date.

Predominantly recorded at his own Brooklyn studio, Selva, Quantic’s initial idea for his new album was to experiment sonically. However, after a while, he changed direction and realised that the record needed to also relate to the human condition - not just his “singular pandemic wormhole”. The demos, then, started off as symphonic, loosely disco-era dance music – a departure from his previous Latin and Spanish instrumental releases.

Influenced by legendary artists in the scene like Bohannon and Larry Levan, Quantic wanted to make a disco-leaning album at first. “I’m really interested in Latin music and Afro Caribbean rhythms and I think there's a really amazing point in history where the emergence of those rhythms and its combination with American soul sparked what we now know as disco,” he says.