MIKE‘s a lot of things—innovative, introspective, imaginative, meditative—but it’s a rare occasion in which he’d be described as a party rapper. There’s an insular aspect to much of his albums and mixtapes, which in the last couple years have found the New York emcee and producer both grieving and attempting to navigate the path forward after the death of his mother. In titling his latest record Disco!, complete with exclamation point, Michael Jordan Bonema seems to contradict these darker chapters at least on a surface level, and the bright and buoyant sounds of the 17 tracks on his eighth full-length suggest that while the celebration is still often bittersweet, there are plenty of good times to be had. Released on June 21 (the first day of summer in 2021—just like May God Bless Your Hustle was in 2017, Tears of Joy was in 2019, and Weight of the World was in 2020), Disco! acts in much the same way MIKE’s prior albums did, like an annual status report. But for the first time it actually feels like a proper summertime album, one that retains the laid-back sensibility of his woozy and immersive productions but makes plenty of room for a warm, accessible jazz-rap production aesthetic. Entirely self-produced under MIKE’s dj blackpower alias, Disco! is endearingly lo-fi, from its crackly samples to MIKE’s microphone sibilance, yet the low-tech approach only enhances the hazy, homespun party vibe that permeates the album.BY JEFF TERICH