I Want to See You Dance

Avid Dancer's 2014 debut EP from Avid Dancer AKA Jacob Dillan Summers. These songs are some of the most kaleidoscopic, distinctly individual - and above all, honest- pop music you'll hear all year. Even when Avid Dancer's music does evoke artists, say - from the vintage electro-disco pulsating through the Hot Chip-esque "I Want to See You Dance," to the hushed Elliot Smith acoustics of "Medication (Demo)" it's a happy coincidence. Raised in a strict Christian household, Summers was forbidden to listen to any secular music until his late teens; as a result, his musical discovery remains ongoing. "Growing up before the Internet, I was cut off," he notes. "I wasn't even allowed to watch MTV! I lived in an alternate reality." I remember sending some songs to a friend and he said, 'Dude, you remind me of the Kinks.' I thought they were maybe a new band, but when I listened to them I fell in love with their music. Another time, I got compared to Elliott Smith, and then I got really into him."