★★★☆☆
This is not John Daly, the colorful golfer nicknamed “Wild Thing” and with a Bob Dylan cover to his name. This John Daly is an Irishman who instead makes electro-washed house with a clean and clear temperament made for diving into or relaxing by. Daly is in the courtyard using solar-powered turntables, the blue sky beats of “Cruise Control” going down like an ice cube sinking to the bottom of your cocktail glass. Synthetically reassuring, and entirely of its own doing and without vocal encouragement, Sunburst is dance music that will always catch you should you stumble.
The fact you can go about your day-to-day without fully engaging with it is not necessarily a bad thing, as the productions are as shipshape as a tidy dairy schedule. Deeper, drowsier house on “Deep Heat” and “All Night” – Daly continually being a producer who names his beats as precisely as they sound (see also the burbling “Moon Pool”) – is for stickier after hours sessions, but with a hold on the album’s overriding tingles and fuss-free focus.
If a lack of individualism crosses your mind, or if it’s a little placid as a clubbing experience (though “I Got Bells” begs to differ), then just take it outdoors for its 50 minutes and understand that it’s called Sunburst for a reason.
File under: Kris Menace, François K, Chicane
