Contributing Writer
Six years after it was completed, Los Angeles electronic duo Dance Spirit have finally released their long-awaited sophomore album, Lunatic, out now via their independent imprint Koukan.
The eleven-track project follows their debut album, The Sun Also Rises, and captures Christopher Mohn and Reagan Denius during one of the most transformative periods of their creative partnership. Rather than revisiting or modernizing the material before its release, the pair chose to preserve Lunatic exactly as it was originally created — allowing the record to exist as a snapshot of who they were at the time.
Conceived as a complete listening journey rather than a collection of standalone singles, Lunatic moves fluidly between introspection, psychedelia and the dance floor. Across the record, Dance Spirit combine intricate percussion, modular experimentation, hypnotic rhythms and melodic sound design to build an immersive world that unfolds from beginning to end.
Album opener “Morning Dew” introduces the project’s atmospheric palette before the record moves through the meditative electronics of “Tranquilized & Hypnotized,” the rolling grooves of “Street Prophet” and the spacious, synth-driven landscape of “Portal.”
“For me, ‘Portal’ is about opening up a portal to the realms of beauty and emotion,” says Denius.
The album’s more dancefloor-focused side comes into view on “Ceremony,” where ritualistic percussion, hypnotic grooves and soaring melodic elements land somewhere between melodic techno and progressive house while maintaining Dance Spirit’s distinct psychedelic edge.
At the conceptual center of the project sits title track “Lunatic.” Written under a full moon in April 2016, the track explores the dualities of light and darkness, freedom and restraint, hedonism and mindfulness.
For Dance Spirit, the idea of the “lunatic” represents those who exist outside convention — the creators, dreamers, outsiders and revolutionaries willing to follow their own path. Its accompanying music video, directed by the duo and featuring members of their extended Desert Hearts community, further connects the album to the culture and friendships surrounding its creation.
Entirely self-produced in Dance Spirit’s Los Angeles studio, Lunatic was built using modular synthesizers, an Elektron RYTM drum machine and years of experimentation with immersive sound design.
The project extends well beyond the music itself. Each of the album’s eleven tracks is accompanied by an original visual work created by longtime collaborator Purdy Lites, while Mohn designed the album artwork. A fully mixed audio and video edition further expands Lunatic into a complete audiovisual experience.
The road to release, however, was far from straightforward.
Burnout, creative evolution and the pressures of life as independent artists eventually brought Dance Spirit’s first chapter to an end, leaving the completed album unreleased. The pandemic followed shortly afterward, and Lunatic remained in the background for years.
After reconnecting personally and creatively, Mohn and Denius eventually returned to the record and discovered that the music still carried the emotional weight that inspired it.
Instead of rewriting or remixing the album to reflect current trends, they decided to release the original recordings untouched.
“Looking back on Lunatic after six years represents an internal shift for me,” says Mohn. “I’m ready to acknowledge this music beyond the pain of the past that Reagan and I put on each other during our initial split. More than anything, it feels like the resolution of a friendship, a really good art project, and hopefully the beginning of a lot of exciting things.”
For Denius, the album reflects the wider emotional arc of their twelve years working together.
“The album represents the culmination of Chris and my 12 years of working together as collaborators,” he says. “It’s almost autobiographical of our journey — the ups and downs, the patience and careful attention to detail. Love, hate, confusion, anger, sadness, but also beauty, hope and redemption. It’s the gamut of emotions that make us human.”
The release also marks a new chapter for Dance Spirit through Koukan, their independent imprint whose name is inspired by the Japanese concept of “sympathetic resonance.” The label gives the duo a permanent home for their creative output and allows them to finally release Lunatic entirely on their own terms.
A fully DIY multimedia project, Lunatic ultimately feels like more than an album that sat unheard for six years. It is a document of a particular moment in Dance Spirit’s history — one that now arrives with an entirely different context, shaped by reconciliation, artistic independence and the decision to let a body of work exist exactly as it was created.
Dance Spirit’s Lunatic is out now via Koukan across all major streaming platforms.