My Dear Disco

Outside their university's classroom walls, after the textbooks had been closed for the night, a small group of students would come together for late-night dance parties. In the ceremonial musk of their college house basement, the sounds of Miles Davis and Alice Coltrane faded into the beats of Daft Punk and Michael Jackson. As their friendships and passion for 4-on-the-floor house beats grew, those parties morphed into the dance band known today as My Dear Disco.

On stage, lead singer Michelle Chamuel vocodes, harmonizes, manipulates, and effects her voice live with a homemade key-tar, sings in English and French, and belts through a megaphone half her size. Mad scientist and guitarist Robert Lester uses the electric guitar to conjure up massive soundscapes, other-wordly pads, and futuristic arena-rock solos. Synthesist and World Champion Bagpiper Tyler Duncan draws from his own life to concoct a personal memoir in sound: childhood nostalgic 8-bit Nintendo basses, teenage-suppressed 90's techno power pads, college-dorm rediscoveries of Michael Jackon's Thriller leads, and the current inexplicable noises that have very little to do with this world. This explosive combination is held together by the rhythmic bond of bassist Christian Carpenter and drummer Mike Shea.

These influences coalesced to create what the band has coined "Dancethink Music." Some might call it high-brow guilty-pleasure dance music. At the end of the day, it's hard to find a genre for a band of music degrees shamelessly enamored with catchy hooks, who wield a giant megaphone, shred on electrified Irish bagpipes, write 80's-esque rock anthems in 5/4, and re-sample themselves doing it live -- all to create a modern-day musical Frankenstein that will pull even the most self-conscious listeners on to the dance floor.