- Mock and Toof have made their name with remixes and re-edits so it was always going to be interesting to hear something they’d produced from scratch. It’s also intriguing because this is the first ‘Death from Abroad’ release, a new label on which James Murphy deigns to acknowledge music not made by North American scum.
The first thing that strikes you is that although identifiably disco, these tunes in no way sound like they could actually be from the disco era (unlike, say, Lindstrom who wonderfully recreates forgotten sounds). The two tracks here have somehow swallowed techno whole and metabolized it into disco mutating the mother of all dance genres into something entirely new in the process.
‘K-Choppers’ is mid-tempo and slightly plodding and certainly isn’t shy about its pharmaceutical intentions both in name and style. It consists mostly of a trippy modulated drone which mutates into acid-y squelches to ominous and nasty effect. Nobody should ever play this track outside of dank basement clubs but in that environment it’ll do very nicely as a mood-setter.
Flip the record over to ‘Brownbred’ and it’s a very different story, like someone switched on the glitterball and kicked out all the zombies. We’ve got disco percussion married to a tech-house riff and a groove that switches up every sixteen bars or so into something different. There’s a truly gleeful variety of different sounds here that pop in for tea and then leave again, perhaps to return later, while the track chugs on without them. We get metallic Detroit synths, occasional acid gurgles, soaring pads and a bit of chanting plus the inevitable cowbell. If that sounds like an unholy mish-mash, be reassured that there is a sinuous bassline that ties it all together and that the disparate elements are retained for long enough to build a groove before they drop out of sight again.
‘Brownbred’ is a great example of why disco is so fun to dance to and shows that there’s a way for current disco producers to avoid the beardo revivalist trap before it’s too late.
TracklistA K-Choppers
B Brownbred