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Disco Inferno - The Last Dance (1993); A review of the seminal EP from Disco Inferno
Topic Started: Apr 14 2016, 09:38 PM (108 Views)
Lee Saunders [Admin]
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Disco Inferno - The Last Dance (1993)
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Over 20 years since Ian Crause last howled atop a sea of samples, time still hasn't given Disco Inferno the right attention (will it happen?), and yet I have never read a review of a Disco Inferno album that hasn't mentioned the tragic paradox - they were perhaps the most innovative, brilliant and important band in the world during their brief existence, but they were never big, and they never had the right attention. To be fair, naming yourselves Disco Inferno wasn't going to help matters. But it's just...unfair.

All the reviews of this band will tell you that after exercising their traditional post-punk roots for a few releases in the early 90s, the band's increasing infatuation with the the boom bap sample collages of The Bomb Squad, the ethereal rapture battling with noise of Loveless, the soundscape heaven of The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld and dark soul of Blue Lines lead to a new novel approach: to write their instruments through samplers, and to sample sounds from all over the place (not just snippets of music and film quotes, a la PWEI). A simple, but completely unheard of idea. And that was only the production approach. Could the band write beautiful music and lyrics to go with this approach? Oh by good God above they could! In fact, between 1992 and 1995, Disco Inferno recorded some of the greatest music ever put to plastic, and it all began with two "EPs" (which were really singles), Summer's Last Sound and A Rock to Cling to. Across them were four of the greatest tracks of their time.

However, for their third release in their innovative style, The Last Dance, the decision was made to feature four tracks on just the one release, so that it truly became an EP. Mid-session, Rough Trade pulled the plug on their sessions with Charlie McIntosh, their old producer, and instead introduced them to ex-New Order engineer and remixer Michael Johnson. So really it was guaranteed to be a mess. And yet, with Michael having introduced the band to pre-production, it was also guaranteed not to be. Which it is, well no, despite being a four track EP, it doesn't hold together as a cohesive, largely because a remix of the first track thrown in but not as the last track. But this isn't a bad thing, as its really not essential in this instance. And in fact, its one of the greatest EPs of all time.

The EP is lead by two of the greatest songs of the 1990s. And within the first few seconds fans were pleasantly confused. "The Last Dance" begins with a few tocks of a ticking clock, but then immediately launches into an unusually melodic bath of beauty. In fact, other than the constant ticking of a clock and a distant crowd noise section, this song is sample free, but its still one of the band's greatest songs despite its departure from their typical style (think of it like how the rhythm-based "Soon" is a departure from MBV's guitar-focused noise despite that also being one of their greatest songs). Some folk compare it to New Order, but it's not as dancey, and in fact, its hard to pigeonhole into a genre. What it is though, without even the slightest eleven o'clock shadow of a doubt, is pure gold. Ian's poignant lyrics hit hard and heavy. In the words of music crit Tom Ewing, "he made it a virtue, his slightly breathless voice sounding urgent, desperate to communicate, but at the same time faltering." Although he was describing his singing style, it also describes the lyrics. Ian resigns to crystal sentimentals. In fact, its hard to top how Ewing followed his quote, noting that as Ian asks "Was there ever a time...like this?", the guitars "skid all over track, and its as inspiring as it is heartbreaking". And those jangley guitars that creep through the gorgeous digi-pop at the end really make the goosebumps stick on overdrive. One of the the greatest songs ever made.

But despite this, once its rounded out, a peculiar vocal sample introduces the second song, "D. I. Go Pop", before the "DRDRDRDRRRRRRR" and suddenly we are in fastly and irreversibly being lunged right into the opposite direction than the previous track, jumping head first into a sea of noisy, sonic, almost overwhemingly amazing matter. The "DRRRDR" is the sound of one second or so of My Bloody Valnetine's classic "You Made Me Realise" on a delightfully ahead-of-its-time offset loop whilst Ian, who's singing rapidly but barely audible, tells you, cries to you in his aforementioned incapable style, about what it feels like to be this, as he jokingly but depressingly summed it up, "cartoon band" who are forever untouched by the masses. And of course, just as the band were incapable of making you listen to their music, you are incapable of listening to his cries because of the static background noise. Heck, you could even say its a commentary, the offset sample resembling the clitter clatter of media buzz and Ian's voice trying to come through with something very worthwhile to tell you despite the media's ignorance, this being the same as, quite literally, the band finding it hard to reach a large audience with the best music being made at the time. And yet Disco Inferno were a very political band, and the lyrics are, despite anything, open to interpretation, and of course one may prefer to see it as a reflection on the mid-90s John Major clusterfuck, the noose on Britain still not loose enough in the post-Thatcher Tory Britain to allow for a breather.

"The Long Dance" is producer Johnson's slightly extended remix of the title track with what appears to be an electronic bass drum pulsating, turning into a piece of dance music despite it being barely different from the original, which really makes you wonder just how Disco Inferno make music that sound so genreless. And with the fourth and final track, "Scattered Shadows", you are in for seven and a half minutes of ambient wonder. The band don't like it because the guitar tone makes it sound too "ethereal", and I see what they mean. It's not entirely the sort of guitar tone you'd find in any indie label band of the early-mid 90s, but then since when did Disco Inferno ever fit into convention?

The Last Dance was ignored just as you'd sadly expect. And for their following release, the full length album D. I. Go Pop (not containing the song of the name), the band built their approach into a beautifully ugly crescendo of untouchable genius. But that's a story for another day. What all their releases have in common, besides their brilliance, is the distinct lack of success which lead to their premature split in early 1995, but rest assured, the ensuing twenty-one years since their split, they've picked up more and more praise and more and more fans each year. And that's truly because, no matter what, Disco Inferno were one of the greatest bands of all time. And for such a short release like The Last Dance to pack with so much variety, so many different tones, and different messages, it still manages to open up a gate to endless exploring, much more to hear within its confines than the 22 minute length suggests.

My review score will base it as an EP and not as an album. If this was considered an album I could moan it wasn't longer, but as an EP you get what you need. Really, its faultless, but I won't give it a perfect score because I want to reserve that for, say, D. I. Go Pop, and The Last Dance does contain an obviously more original first half than second, but the second half is still utter genius. Oh I don't know..
9/10
Edited by Lee Saunders, Apr 14 2016, 09:49 PM.
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