Three years after exploring new dimensions in ambient jazz alongside Pharoah Sanders, Sam Shepherd refocuses his efforts on the dancefloor, with dazzling results. In 2014, Sam Shepherd wrote a career-defining tune in a matter of minutes. “Nuits Sonores” was finished on a flight to the Lyon festival of the same name, and it sounds as effortless as it apparently was, climbing towards the heavens without boiling over into excess. This is one of Shepherd’s two main modes—when he’s not a jazz auteur, he’s a crack house and techno producer. (He also has a PhD in neuroscience and is a revered and adventurous selector behind the decks.) That other side has won him fame from all corners of the music industry, culminating in Promises, his 2021 collaboration with Pharoah Sanders. More recently, he’s been taking to huge festival stages with crossover DJs like Caribou and Four Tet, following them in their quests to infiltrate the mainstream on their own terms. All those parts of Floating Points are connected, but not always obviously. Enter Cascade, an album that bolsters Shepherd’s club cunning with his musical chops in service of one single-minded mission: blissing out on the dance floor.