Two Star and the Dream Police by Mk.gee

Appearing as the first musical guest on Saturday Night Live after Donald Trump’s reelection seems like a bum deal. Even so, Michael Todd Gordon, who makes music under the moniker Mk.gee, was an esoteric choice: a decidedly lo-fi, low-profile, multi-instrumentalist artist and producer who sings like a Gen Z Sting. But he was the perfect choice: a voice backed by a plaintive guitar squall, spitting emotion. It resonated profoundly. Mk.gee’s debut album, Two Star & The Dream Police, has a vital thrum. Singles ‘Are You Looking Up’ and ‘Alesis’ sound experimental, but you can tell they started from a place of soft R&B accessibility. Their mangled melodies recall the scrappy ingenuity of early doo-wop producers. But Dream Police pushes those distortions to breaking point – a vast suffusion of American musical history getting compressed through a crunchy filter. In a lane all his own, the surreal and the sincere meet. Mk.gee’s all that.