Duck Sauce Quack

Most of dance music is ridiculous, albeit usually for the wrong reasons. But that can be overlooked if it still makes you want to dance. Eschewing the rigid presentation of commercial EDM, veteran house producer Armand van Helden and renowned turntablist/beatmaker A-Trak color—and often disrupt—their romp of a Duck Sauce album debut with skits and other, well, quackery. Legit boogie catalysts abound, however. String-like keyboard melodies and flamboyant basslines add a disco classicism to opener “Chariots of the Gods.” The enlivened “Charlie Chazz & Rappin Ralph” impressively honors both the golden eras of house and hip-hop.

Helden and A-Trak continue to mine their influences, from New Wave and punk (the head-embedding “Radio Stereo”) to R&B and funk (the Daft Punk-esque “aNYway”), all delivered with gusto and simultaneously waxing nostalgic for New York City. Even novelty hit “Barbra Streisand” is recontextualized amid Duck Sauce’s Big Apple celebration, its obnoxiousness morphing into a more guilt-free jubilance.