Good Morning to the Night

The Sydney dance-pop duo Pnau mined Sir John’s back catalog, choosing songs that would blend best with its own futuristic indie-disco. The opening title track sparkles as if Nick Littlemore and Peter Mayes slap-chopped John’s vocal parts before sprinkling them over a throbbing neon remake of Paul Williams’ 1979 theme song for The Love Boat. The following “Sad” simmers down, layering gratuitous amounts of reverb over Captain Fantastic’s vocals. It creates a hazy serenade with a backlit glow, begging for a video filmed with Vaseline smeared over the camera’s lens. This is nicely contrasted by the much harder groove in the outstanding “Black Icy Stare,” where loops of John’s soulful singing are cleverly accompanied by bellbottomed boogie, deep bassy brass, and period-correct chirps from the analog synth tones of an old Moog. With '80s-flavored keyboard samples of bells and strings innovatively pumped through 21st-century effects, “Foreign Fields” plays like a robot ballad on par with Daft Punk’s quieter moments.