Australian production duo Canyons – Ryan Grieve and Leo Thomsen – are often compared to fellow ’80s inspired synth travellers M83 and Cut Copy, but this seems a little wide of the mark given the evidence of debut album Keep Your Dreams. While the duo might take their cues from the same period and utilise saxophone solos that verge on the brilliantly atrocious, this record is ultimately a more dance-orientated affair, with electro, disco and house music all present and correct… alongside some worrying soft rock.

Perth raised but now residing in Sydney, Grieve and Thomsen formed the Hole in the Sky label back in 2007 before they even released any music, signing then releasing the first record by fellow Western Australians, the marvellous psych-rockers Tame Impala. Following this they released dance records and remixes under various guises, DJing across Australia and the US before finally releasing their debut album as Canyons.

Keep Your Dreams is stuffed full of ideas and tends to overflow with adventurousness at times, but Grieve and Thomsen imbue the tracks here with such a joyful exuberance that you almost don’t mind that they’re sometimes too clever-clever for their own good. For a couple of guys who’ve remixed the likes of !!! and The Juan McLean, they really could have taken a leaf out of at least the latter’s book and opted for a more minimalist approach where necessary. Witness first track proper ‘Under a Blue Sky’, which begins with some vintage analogue synth pulses and a terrific house hook before adding some skronking and unsettling sax, and scratchy guitar worthy of Nile Rogers. So far, so good; so why add the pretentious spoken-word mumbling in French? It’s one step too far and ultimately a distraction. What’s much better is the skyscraping soulful psych of ‘My Rescue’, with its corking deep house piano, passionate vocals and a guitar drive that should seem out of place on the track, but somehow fits perfectly.

At the points at which the house music hits things really get going, with tracks like ‘See Blind Through’ and ‘The Bridge’ giving a large nod to Etienne De Crecy’s Super Discount and Detroit techno. The former has a soulful and rich vocal line, while the latter is a glitchy, pulsing club banger. ‘Blue Snakes’ – an album highlight – is a brooding track with low bass and a mesmerising beat, punctuated by a moaning vocal sample. It’s a shame, then, that these throbbing highlights are interrupted by some far-from-great slower moments: ‘Sun and Moon’ is marred by an awful off-key falsetto and soft rock moves, and ‘Tonight’ is a funk disaster. ‘When I See You Again’, however, is a shaft of Balearic sunlight, all bright acoustics and summery beats, taking us back to hot Ibiza club nights.

It’s obvious that Grieve and Thomsen are accomplished producers and remixers, as well as being talented musicians, and Keep Your Dreams sounds fantastic from start to finish – they’ve just got to know when to stop adding layers of sounds to their tracks. Neither quite dance music or rock music, it’s an interesting and idiosyncratic hybrid, and the rule seems to be to expect the unexpected. Who knows what Canyons will produce next, but it’ll certainly be worth listening to.