Photo: Rob Phillips

When John MacLean, aka electronic producer the Juan MacLean, needed inspiration for his dance floor-friendly hit “Find a Way,” he continued the longstanding relationship between drugs and musicians. “Lyrically, it’s a bunch of stuff scribbled down from when I took peyote with a member of my first band Six Finger Satellite sometime in the 1990s,” MacLean tells Hive. “We took way too much and were up for three days and I was consumed with this idea of trying to ‘find my way’ back to reality. I thought a spaceship was going to deliver a girl to guide me and I swore that I would marry her.”

Alien marriages aside, “Find a Way” sees MacLean doing his self-professed imitation of original Can vocalist Malcolm Mooney, whose raw, aggressive vocals dominated that band’s early work. Former LCD Soundsystem member Nancy Whang balances out the male-female vocal dynamic over the synth-heavy track.

The song is taken from MacLean’s forthcoming album Everybody Get Close, a collection of outtakes and remixes meant to hold people over until the release of his third proper album next year. “It doesn’t have a title yet, but it picks up where [2009's] The Future Will Come left off, with lots of tracks heavily influenced by ’80s synth pop and ’90s house music,” MacLean says. “Hopefully it will be finished by the end of the year, and it will definitely be released in the first half of 2012 on DFA Records.” No word yet on what role spaceships will play in the recording, but it’s still early.

Everybody Gets Close is due October 25 on DFA Records.