Stylus Magazine

Q: Tell us the fortunate fortune for this disc and give us your answers, tech-sage, keeper of the word, high writing one of Carpal Tunnel—

A: Here's what's going on: there are no new ravers. This is not new information. But for awhile we all tried to sadistically beat the fuckers: a postmodern Gimp one-two through an increase in a hardness of beats and tempos and ultra-minimalism, a complete 180 into high art and silence. & the old music producers are kicking away at that dark rebellious spirit, that house-filled gospel, and simultaneous sound explosion, they realise their crowd may be dancing but simply no longer fucking gets this shit anymore. What is to be done (mumbling and on coke)? (...damn this generation, no rebellion, no desire to drug-out anymore like we used to do back in 1990, jesus...)

Q: Yes, high art beckons to some, of course there is always the commercial end of everything, progressive house, trance, and cold Icelandic techno that has bred itself into nothing but berserk drum box coke (err.. cookie) cutting. (And those talented producers on the periphery and at the origin are now changing up to house anyway).

A: YES, BUT, & then somewhere out of the haze a third of everyone realised they were just about over thirty if not more than that or at least feeling oldened by this scene. And they nostalgized about it all but didn't want to pop E anymore, not with all the press anyway on how bad it might be, despite the facts being the opposite (it's all a DEA drug scare—look at HST, he's still kicking...sort of...), and realising that it just sends you down and out for the week when there are responsibilities in life.

Q: So BANG, everyone knows this story now, right? I mean everyone jumped back to nostalgize something they were like 10 or 12 or 4 or 6 at the time: "1982" electroclash. Is that good enough though? Even electroclash is all Ministry of Sound V/A comps and has largely left I-F's quirky Space Invaders are Smoking Grass in the dust. So whattit be, prophesizer?

A: DISCO!

Yes, bring on Moroder, resurrect his Italo-grave, re-salt, and spin. (& the skies opened & the people spake and it was Good).

Remember, BUSH=REAGAN=THATCHER! It's the same all over, economically the same bastards are in power so we should make this damn music the same! The 90s were our 60s!!

Q: So is this where we'at? Back at a well-produced disco with some kind of funk and soul and the returning presence of the vocal (what does Achim think about that, I wonder?)...essentially back at our roots, reappropriating the New Black Atlantic all over again, essentially a-s-sitting around waiting for the Afro-Underground to speak and give forth a new and better invention while we re-work their old ones into the oblivious Future of Empire?

A: Ok, ok – we've all been reading a little Kodwo Eshun this week, I see. I didn't say that. This take on DISCO! be beautiful like sweet honey, like Luomo's dusky compact track here all nice vocals and kicks that he played at Mutek all late-night-sexy-like... it's more like a synthesized minimal deep house...

Q: But Data 80 sounds like just Daft Punk on Discovery!!

A: True, true. But the postmodern irony of that, eh? SHIT! Daft Punk sampling bad 70s prog rock to churn out retro-80s pop to a fin de siecle generation! Shit! Shit! That's brilliant! And then Data 80 taking this and pushing it as the next big thing on the label that is always on the edge of the next big thing!

Q: Damn, you're right. And the poppiness of Metro Aera is catchy, all slow and laid out like those long house intros. It's not real disco anyway, no real musicians—we live in machine fantasy here, eh? Machinefunk!

A: And don't forget MRI's "Disco Discovery!" Title track that leads the whole deal off with these sweet sexy vocals of a Collette-like voice but better singing because it's K. Pfau discover me disco discover me like DISCO! was her feminized body like here we were, Conquistadors at the steps of Rome, ready to take Jerusalem but we're in the most PLAID SUITS of the decade and strung out on hash stolen right from the end of gravity's rainbow! And it's yeah..a'rrright let's DISCOVER this dame, right, dig in darlin’.

Q: The whole thing ends always in the end, wouldn't you say, like a long joke, an infinite jest, like is this art imitating pop or serious auteurs selling out because serious art is dead, dead, die die, art? (...gerumbling death drone drive...)

A: Exactly! MONISM=PLURALISM=DISCO=DADA! I even saw the contemporary Burning Bush dancing to this shit! Remember, REAGAN=THATCHER=BUSH1/2!

Q: Weeeesshhhee! Never mind that it be utilising all those conventions we dissed so long as techno-purists, slamming that lightbulb on the front cover in memory of dead monumental thoughts! I mean it's all desire, right?

A: Or left! Neither side matters as it's all beyond narrative representational affect once we're dancing on a DISCO! line!

Q: So what's this Akufen Herbert-dealie doing here all like Herberité? I mean this ain't all DISCO! Or is it?

A: Ahh, see this is the Escape Out Hatch! Like yer feet are sore and all round and round you been in the Circus Circus at the Centre of it All and realising it's all sensational nothingness whiteness nothingness and that all we are Left with as the Left is the prophecies of a Greta Zero and coming up from the floor—sweet man, have a sweet—is the Schwarzkommando, well then, we got to grab the monkey and run, right? Like take it off and then you realise you will start like this like this—when you fall you will fall like this ...

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