Australian duo Ryan Grieve and Leo Thomson came together to form Hole in the Sky Records. And, after releasing their own individual pieces and the debut EP from Tame Impala, they united – and Canyons were born.

Since then they’ve remixed !!! and Juan Maclean, released tracks on DFA Records and signed on the dotted line at Modular Records. With Keep Your Dreams we finally get their full statement of intent. These two make dance music that runs between psyched-out arrangements, house-beats, soulful-Dance and hypnotic vibes. Oh, and they are quite partial to a sax solo or two.

Lead single, My Rescue, is a high – pianos fall on big chords, the pumping rhythm is accentuated with some manic percussion, and the vocals wail affectively across the whole prosaic affair. Canyons seem to be falling through a series of times and places, throwing out 80s analogue amid mutated Soul genes (check See Blind Through), to the improv-breakout and post-rave comedown on the imaginative Blu Snakes. And don’t forget the half-spoken woozy, Belearic-pop within When I See You Again.

With new voices and instruments constantly being wound together, continuity is not on the agenda. And admittedly we struggled to not feel a little delusional after the hypnotherapy session that is album closer And We Dance.

That aside Canyons’ debut is an inventive scrapbook of dance music. They successfully bend the format into new shapes and sizes, their imagination seemingly the glue that holds it all together. Fall backwards into the Canyons and see where you land.

-William Bell-