Milky Disco 1.5

We Say...

Review by Philip Sherburne

Lots of names have been floated to describe the '00s revival of disco at its most warped and spaced-out, but Lo Recordings take the cake with the Milky Disco series. The title offers a teasingly synaesthetic suggestion of the murky, translucent churn within. Besides the dropped tempos, today's disco beats might not differ much from house music. These artists counter contemporary dance music's clinical precision with the warped sound of detuned analog synths and waterlogged magnetic tape. The whole comp rattles with congas, cowbells and shakers galore. In Flagranti's "Preceding Stairs" pairs a slow, hissing house groove with tireless, syncopated percussion; Geroges Vert's yearning "Jovan Freak (Rune Lindbaek Nomaden Mix)" stacks brassy synthesizers atop rolling drum and percussion tracks that boil up from a soup of tape hiss.

But churning doesn't mean directionless. Inspired as much by disco's melodic side as its rhythmic impulses, tracks like Black Devil's "For Hoped (Dub)" paint fanciful melodic lines in broad strokes; Chilled by Nature's "Otherness (Windsurf's Golden Bear Dub)" updates Terry Riley's minimalist pulse music for bleepy sequencers and a wash of fluttering guitars. Bluesy guitars give Weirdo Police's "When a Friend Returns" a whiff of yacht rock (or at least Dire Straits), while Coyote's "Cactus," Lurifax's "Midnight Drive" and NDV's "Touchy Philly" dive up to their elbows in sticky chords and counterpoints. They could just as easily have called the album Saltwater Taffy or Rice Pudding: this is as gooey as dance music gets.