If you are a fan of Santigold, MIA or Rye Rye, Diplo and Switch’s newest collaboration will appeal to you. It’s the sound of a future-retro Jamaican party, one that you probably would’ve missed because it was in a pretty bad neighborhood… but if you’d braved it, the best one you’d seen in a long time. Warning: Major Lazer is not high art, like some other releases aspire to. (The first video featured a typically amped Andy Molinakis ‘chatting’ on repeat, in Zomby makeup on Hollywood Blvd.) But this is some of the same stuff that drew you into hip-hop and hair metal as a kid; it’s the fantasy that can only come alive in the studio.

“Major Lazer is a Jamaican commando who lost his arm in the secret Zombie War of 1984. The US military rescued him and repurposed experimental lazers as prosthetic limbs. Since then Major Lazer has been a hired renegade soldier for a rogue government operating in secrecy underneath the watch of M5 and the CIA. His cover is that of a dancehall night club owner from Trinidad and he enlisted the help of long-time allies and uber-producers, Diplo (DJ) and Switch (DJ), to produce his first LP. His true mission is to protect the world from the dark forces of evil that live just under the surface of a civilized society. He fights vampires and various monsters, parties hard, and has a rocket powered skateboard.”

The debut record Guns Don’t Kill People… Lazers Do, features everyone from Vybz Cartel to Santigold to a dude named Prince Zimboo, who apparently has 99 wives and is Africa’s version of Borat. If you look hard enough, there’s all sorts of ridiculous nonsense surrounding this new album. However, this project is about abandoning logic, for the sake of saving the party. After all, we could all use a hero like Major Lazer in our lives these days.

(via Sandwich & Drink)