Little Dragon‘s soulful electronic pop only caught my attention recently, but when it did, it grabbed it. Currently on their second album, Little Dragon debuted in 2007 with a self-titled record and had their double-A single “Twice/Test” dubbed as “Single of the Week” by Rough Trade.

Made up of Gothenburg-natives Yukimi Nagano (vocals), Erik Bodin (drums), Fredrik Wallin (bass) and Håkan Wirenstrand (keyboards), Little Dragon list everything from Depeche Mode to Prince, LCD Soundsystem to James Holden, dancehall to R&B, jazz and soul as inspirations, a combination which is quite evident on their new album Machine Dreams.

Their songs are calm as well as danceable: the smooth intro track “A New” is followed by the more upbeat “Looking Glass” and “My Step”, which lead to the gorgeously languid single “Feather”, creating a bit of a pattern that is pretty much consistent throughout the album.

Besides the already aforementioned, best tracks are: “Runabout”, “Swimming”, “Blinking Pigs”, and “Fortune”.

Machine Dreams is out now.

~ “Feather” ~