- Recently me, the ex-wife, her nephew, and his lover (that just sounded like the title of a Peter Greenaway movie, didn’t it?) went to a live electro-pop concert from one of France’s much-loved new songstress' here in Montreal, and because we didn’t feel like mingling with the overtly fluorescent pre-pubescent crowd, we just hung out at the concert hall’s mezzanine and drank our way out of the entire (Yelle, OK?) concert… while sitting down the entire time. Turns out I was pleasantly surprised at how rested and energized my 34-year-old bones felt after such a counter-intuitive experience.
Dancing while sitting down is what Low Motion Disco, the Swiss duo recently signed to Eskimo is all about. The group is at the forefront of the so-called “nü” slo-mo groove scene that has been burgeoning in all corners of Europe in recent months—even though Bent and Lemon Jelly did it all first (and not that long ago) without anyone making much of a fuss. But in Low Motion Disco's case, the actual music could even be secondary here, considering how the band’s own name, album, and track titles aptly speak for themselves: 'Keep It Low' and 'Frantic Low Moment' come across as pure moments of self-referential bliss… and that’s before you press the play button.
Musically speaking, the content of the group's debut album is being compared to Lindstrom & Prins Thomas' work on Eskimo. But where the Norwegian space disco kings are boringly self-indulgent at times, Low Motion Disco keep everything placidly immediate. 'Intro,' for instance, is an obvious homage to The KLF’s seminal Chill Out, sheep noises and all, while 'Things Are Gonna Get Easier' is so lightheartedly MOR it wouldn’t sound out of place on Barbara Streisand & Barry Gibb's 1980 collaboration, Guilty. (That’s a good thing, by the way.) There are even hints of Cocteau Twins-like aerial guitar play on 'Love Knows Low,' which shows the duo’s varied influences and overall dedication to all things shoegaze. Only on 'People Come in Slowly' do LMD dare to increase—albeit very discreetly, mind you—the cadence, and this rare threat is the album’s stellar moment.
Considering the absence of one actual bona fide anthem and tracks that verge on the side of irritatingly lethargic ('The Low Murderer Is Out at Night'), Keep It Slow can’t really be considered the sub-sub-genre’s definitive album. In the meantime, Low Motion Disco’s pastoral noises, pulsating humming, dub-ish ambiences, and breezy samples should appeal to everyone that’d like their Hercules & Love Affair less flaming and their Pop Ambient more visceral.
Tracklist01. Intro
02. Born On The Low Wind
03. Things Are Gonna Get Easier
04. Talk Low When in Space
05. Love Knows Low
06. Frantic Low Moment
07. Love Love Love
08. The Low Murderer Is Out at Night
09. Low Italian Déssert (Try It Out)
10. East Mountain Low
11. People Come in Slowly
12. At Last I Am Low
13. Keep It Low