Future Disco has proved to be an incredibly popular series over the years, presenting a number of different takes on the house-disco interface. Part of its success is down to the ability to keep fresh with its selections, and true to form MirrorballMotel includes five new tracks.
What’s the music like?
Consistently strong and rarely generic, this is a really enjoyable set of tunes.
The new material performs strongly. Daisybelle & Tasty Lopez’sStarlight (in Future Disco Ballroom Dub form) sashays onto the floor with confidence. Boys Shorts‘ SuburbanLoveAffair has a strong West Coast vibe, while Italoconnection dazzle with interlinked synths in the 1980s throwback AllOver. Charlie Hepworth‘s It’sSatisfaction has an enjoyable rough edge to its tone. Best of all, arguably, is the heat-soaked YouUnderstand from the brilliantly named CliveFromAccounts, a track full of atmosphere and promise.
The other tracks are hardly fillers – not when you consider the addition of Roosevelt, Breakbot, Irfane & Yuksek and Digitalism – as well as strong contributions from the likes of Storken and EYNKA, who throws in some Bicep-friendly shimmering synths.
Does it all work?
It does – Mirrorball Motel takes you to a different place pretty much straight away, impressing with its fusion of poolside house and deep, clubby dance fodder.
Is it recommended?
Yes, enthusiastically – taking its place alongside the most successful instalments in an impressively durable series.
Today we learned of the sad news that conductor Libor Pešek has died at the age of 89.
A tribute to him has been posted on social media by his management company IMG, while the artist page they held for him contains details on his conducting career.
Libor Pešek made some particularly fine recordings with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra when Virgin Classics was in the ascendancy in the 1990s. They include a cycle of the symphonies of Dvořák but also a rather wonderful disc introducing us to the music of Vítězslav Novák, and in particular his Slovak Suite. The recording became extremely popular with Classic FM listeners, and has led to something of a revival for the composer.
The playlist enclosed here is almost exclusively of Czech music, including works by Suk and Smetana, but we also include a nod to some extremely fine recordings of British music the conductor made, notably Britten’s Young Person’s Guide.
Any listener to classical music from the 1980s onwards will surely have encountered Libor Pešek’s art, and we can appreciate it here:
Italian duo Andrea Di Ceglie and Luigi Tutolo return with their second album as Agents Of Time. Having boosted their profile with recent single Afterlife and a remix of The Weeknd’s Take My Breath, the pair return to an approach blending techno knowhow and song-based structures – with a few instrumentals thrown in for good measure.
What’s the music like?
Strong and assured. Agents Of Time are pretty consistent in their marriage of full bodied, club-based beats and song structures, and get a satisfying variety in their choice of material. The net result is a set of what can only be called ‘moody bangers’!
There is a good deal of versatility in this music. Dream Vision, for instance, makes a really strong impact with its cinematic strings, while Blu proves its worth as one of the strongest vocal tracks.
Clipped beats and moody vocals from Audrey Janssens in Fallin’ hark back to the UK garage sound at the turn of the century. Janssens reappears later on the tougher Poison. Interstellar Cowboy goes for a futuristic approach, the vocal accents balancing a solid instrumental backing.
On the instrumental front, Pulses and Ciao are both excellent in the way they channel evocative lines through driving beats with a sharper edge to the bass. Finally Dinasty signs off with no beats at all, succeeding through a trancey loop instead.
Does it all work?
Mostly. There are some curious vocal additions (The World Is Dump, for instance) but most of Universo squarely hits the mark.
Is it recommended?
It is, if you like a dose of vocal pop against melodic techno as part of your dance music experience. Expressive and cinematic, this is an album well worth trying.
Daphni is the alias under which Dan Snaith – also known as Caribou – lets loose and allows his musical instincts to run free in club-based music.
This is the third album he has made under this alias, and it is a no-nonsense affair of 14 tracks, wrapped up in 47 minutes. Initially Snaith was not thinking of an album, but found that the music he had been making with Daphni in mind had satisfying links and logic in their order – and so Cherry was born.
What’s the music like?
Liberating and colourful. With its roots in dance, this is an album that generates a good deal of positive, kinetic energy, becoming all about movement. Yet there are plenty of riffs and bright colours to hang on to as well, Snaith working plenty of material into his busy constructions.
The title track goes busily on its way, with a metallic glint to the percussion, Snaith employing some of the bright colours he sprinkles liberally through the album. Always There uses what feels like a twisted mariachi section, and cuts straight into the pinball synths of Crimson, which themselves blend in with a nice, piano-based loop.
Mania has some really nice spacey effects, while the urgent beats on Mona make a strong impression. Clavicle glints in the half light, while Cloudy is arguably the best of all, with a lovely, rippling piano cascaded over a clipped, glitchy beat.
Does it all work?
It does – and if anything it’s a shame Snaith doesn’t develop some of the shorter tracks. Falling especially would have made a good, clubby track, while the jagged Karplus could have been a springboard for something substantial.
Is it recommended?
Yes. This is the sound of an artist having fun in the studio, going where his instincts direct him to go, and coming up with something colourful and melodic that his fans will love.
The Dream Syndicate Plays The Days of Wine and Roses and more
The Dream Syndicate [Steve Wynn (guitar / vocals), Jason Victor (guitar), Mark Walton (bass guitar), Dennis Duck (drums)]
Lafayette, Kings Cross, London; 18 October 2022
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
Can it really be 40 years since The Dream Syndicate launched The Days of Wine and Roses on an unsuspecting public beholden to the false promise of the New Romantics or wanton hubris of Hair Metal? Judging by the effusive reception from this capacity ‘we were there’ house (by no means restricted to males edging towards their seventh decade) at Lafayette, those first impressions of its Velvets-meets-Stooges amalgam have not worn thin – nor has this band’s penchant for unleashing visceral alt-rock with an ease born of intuition.
Taking the stage with unstudied casualness, DS needed no warm-up as it launched a suitably blistering take on Bullet Holes – Steve Wynn duly acknowledging those present before the mock-hedonism of Out Of My Head, then a driving account of Put Some Miles On. If the band’s reformation in 2012 after a 23-year sabbatical was unexpected, the consistency of its four-album run this past decade has been heartening. The spiralling enticement of 2017’s How Did I Find Myself Here, pulsating song-set of 2019’s These Times, daring leap into the dark of 2020’s The Universe Inside and now the heady synthesis of European with American traits of just-released Ultraviolet Battle Hymns and True Confessions between them confirm an outfit which has never yet repeated itself whether four, eight or (why not?) 12 albums in.
This latest offering was next up in the moody soulfulness of Damian, then an incendiary take on Burn underlined just why it remains a candidate for the greatest-ever DS song – and one to whose deep-cutting groove the engaging catchiness of Every Time You Come Around made a perfect foil. Hard To Say Goodbye exuded a pathos not without regret, and the engaging irony of Trying To Get Over rounded off a judiciously chosen trio from the new album. DS was never averse to taking risks frowned upon by its hide-bound peers, the disciplined riffing of How Did I Find Myself Here a riposte to those unable to grow old creatively while still rocking-out as instinctively as their younger selves. A ‘half of life’ classic to rank with the finest, Glide brought this first set towards its ecstatic touchdown.
A decade on, the current line-up gratifies with its stability and impresses with its flexibility – Wynn’s resourceful rhythm playing a sure incitement to Jason Victor’s combustible flights of fancy, with Mark Walton as unobtrusive or as playful as the song required, and Dennis Duck a model of proactive time keeping (no place this time for Chris Cacavas’s multi-layered keys – hopefully next tour). All of which were honed to perfection for a complete traversal of DS’s debut album that, as Frank Sinatra’s mellow tones faded out, took up most of the second set.
Its initial rimshot riveting attention, Tell Me When It’s Over compelled in its overlapping guitars and sneering vocal, as did Definitely Clean with its new-wave abrasiveness. It may have resorted to something like its initial arrangement, but the vamping riff of That’s What You Always Say assuredly took no prisoners, while Then She Remembers took on Iggy and the Asheton’s at their own game to secure at least a ‘score-draw’. Hallowe’en proved intriguing as ever with its inscrutable provocation then, after a brief pause for ‘turning over’, When You Smile cast a hypnotic spell via its glancing feedback and baleful power-chords. Wynn may no longer indulge in those verbal volleys that once articulated the latter stages of Until Lately but this fable of disillusion still packs its punch, while Too Little Too Late brought Linda Pitmon to front of stage for this insinuating take on a number once graced by Kendra Smith. Its dark humour unleashed, The Days of Wine and Roses surged forth on a twin-guitar rave of epic proportions thrown into relief only when brought to a shuddering halt.
What it showed, apart from the intrinsic excellence of DS, was the relevance of this album to the musical present – its ‘way of doing things’ formidably conveyed through the ambience of Lafayette, well on its way to becoming a mid-sized venue of choice for such gigs. The band returned for an inexorable take on Donovan’s Season of the Witch, before it tore into the inevitable curtain-closer of John Coltrane Stereo Blues with a vengeance. Is a 2024 tour featuring a 40th-anniversary rendition The Medicine Show on the cards? We can only hope.
You can read more about The Dream Syndicate attheir website – while for more on Steve Wynn click here For information on Lafayette, head to the venue website
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