If this summer needs more booming bass in car speakers or charged clubbing music for dancing the night away, Berlin-based couple MCR-T and Miss Bashful’s new album Tootsie Pop provides the perfect tunes for hot summer nights. Together they create a unique sound combining techno dance and house with a 2000s-esque aesthetic. Bumping with enticing dance instrumentals and sensually clever lyrics, the new album will keep audiences, either in the club or the car, intrigued. 

MCR-T, a seasoned Ghettotech artist, eloped with Miss Bashful earlier this year. Although a newer artist on the scene, Bashful quickly found her sound. Her earlier works with DBBD, a Berlin DJ and producer, solidified her style as “slut-techno,” now perfected on Tootsie Pop, which released earlier this month.

Miss Bashful and MCR-T’s lyrics prove addicting throughout the entire album. “Got your uncle in my DMs, he be cheatin’ on aunty” on “1-800-Ghettolicious” serves as one example of several amusing lines that Miss Bashful delivers. In one of the album’s stand out tracks, “Sad Slut,” Miss Bashful does her best to encompass all the emotions of a thriving club life, including the tough times. The song explores these feelings with rhymes like “I’m crying in the club, I’m not gonna sober up,” with the sped-up version giving a killer touch and irresistable vitality to the album.

“Lollipops and Limousines” shows off the expert production by MCR-T. Miss Bashful applies her signature voice filters, adding the perfect techno vibe alongside layered instrumentals. The intro sample shows how much the duo’s playfulness adds to their music.

The track “FSDD” shows MCR-T’s versatility and incorporated styles. The song starts off as a club rave but morphs into a house jam with deep spacey keys about halfway through. With MCR-T’s ascendancy of techno, he’s able to make the jam feel like a long trance. The percussion serves as another highlight of the album, providing the listener with fast-paced club beats true to MCR-T’s sound.

With synth breakdowns and echoey mantras thick with reverb heavily influenced by techno legends such as Gigi D’Asgostino, the album’s final track, “Global BBs” ends on a bang. The playful back and forth between the two artists invokes memories of Fergie and Timbaland or Ja Rule and Ashanti, who ruled the radio waves in the 2000s. The duo clearly draws on nostalgic influences. 

MCR-T and Miss Bashful do a wonderful job of creating a variety of sound throughout their album, with great instrumentals, little room for error and few weak points full of deeply disparate notched tracks. If the album possesses any weaknesses, it’s that it successfully explores so many sounds that future projects might struggle to top it. 

On this collaborative record, the thoroughly produced tracks perfectly pair with sexy lyrics and bumping beats. Just in time for the last weeks of summer, Miss Bashful and MCR-T deliver a project sure to keep house parties alive and the dance floor moving. 

4 1/2 Tootsie Pops out of 5