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Even if you never find out what a Penguin Prison is, there’s no denying Chris Glover aka Penguin Prison has made a brilliant record. If you’re a fan of New York disco, as accessible as it is angular, all burbling bass lines, resonant rhythms, shimmering synths and heavenly melodies, then you’ll love the new Penguin Prison album.

Chris became Penguin Prison at the start of 2009. It wasn’t long before he earned a reputation as remixer du jour for the likes of Marina and the Diamonds, Goldfrapp and Passion Pit. He agrees that he conferred NY kudos especially on the British artists, and admits his favorite remix was for Jamiroquai, adding that the secret to a good remix is “to throw everything away from the original track and start from scratch”.

It was inevitable that Chris would then make music of his own, which he began in late 2009. You can hear the spectacular results on the debut Penguin Prison album, which sounds to all intents and purposes like a Greatest Hits collection, so chock-full it is of catchy hooks and classic pop choruses. There is Multi-Millionaire, which is about “being rich even if you’ve got no money” and one titled Don’t Fuck With My Money that features Jackson-style percussive gasps and a lyric that pushes the envelope. “I was worried it was too crazy – ‘Can I really say that?’ People said leave it in, so I did. “All my lyrics are sarcastic but serious as well,” he adds. “So I’m really saying ‘don’t fuck with my money’! Because if you try to, it’s not going to be good…”

A Funny Thing manages to be propulsive and poppy, somehow club-conscious and cerebral, evoking NY avant-disco acts past and present, from Talking Heads to LCD Soundsystem. On Golden Train what sounds like a sample from Kraftwerk’s immortal Trans Europe Express is actually a late-70s toy, a little seven-inch keyboard that Chris stumbled across, called a Bee Gees rhythm machine. This was the genesis of Penguin Prison, the first track Chris wrote for the project, and it features not just the Bee Gees gadget but also drum parts sampled from Boney M. Yes, this miraculous slice of shiny, infectious, fabulous future-dance comes from those two giants of disco cheese, Bee Gees and Boney M.

Chris clearly knows what he’s doing, and is in his element in the studio. The music is both programmed on computers and played by real live human beings, including Alex from Holy Ghost! “Most of it is me,” explains Chris. “I tried to keep an element of the human, only using modern technology. I use ProTools as a canvas, a place to put things, but the synths I use are analogue.”

“I definitely wanted to make a pop album where every song was good and catchy and people could dance to it,” decides Chris, who aims to perform his songs all over the world like a strange little impish hybrid of Jackson and Prince. “It was hard work to make, but I tried to have fun. I made sure of that. If I didn’t jump around the room while I was recording a song, it didn’t make the cut. Fun is the key.”

Penguin Prison Elsewhere