- "Disco" has meant a lot of things over its lifespan. Early on, it denoted a venue and a means—the nightclub, the DJ spinning according to his and the dancers' tastes. By the mid-'70s it became a style: swishing hi-hats, four-on-the-floor pound, synthetic like nylon (strings) or polyester (synthesizers), narcotic by default (and, OK, design), and most of all omnipresent. After that it was banished from current usage for a while even as the music it engendered, from "Billie Jean" to "Holiday" to "Let the Music Play," owned the radio and clubs.
It's the latter stuff that's occupies London DJ/producer Stevie Kotey on this very durable collection of . . . it feels sort of foolish to refer to Wunderbutt simply as "re-edits," since what he does with his source material is as important as the material itself. Disco, after all, is an atmosphere as much as a continuum: a slow-tempo Sleeping Bag excursion and frantic Studio 54-era string-cheese glop equally evoke an era when licentiousness abounded.
It certainly helps that Kotey's ear, on this evidence, leans heavily toward the off-kilter—he keeps us on our toes in more ways than one. "Lucifer Went to Church" is phased-and-faded space disco, literally—the sample source in the first couple of minutes seems to brown out every few bars. "Torro De Butt" cuts and pastes indolent bass phrases into a jagged but enticing whole that never quits sounding like it's just beginning to rev up. "Morning Bump" reconstitutes the classic Bo Diddley beat ("shave-and-a-haircut, two bits") into something whose constituent parts (echoed voices uttering "keep on," growling and glowering bass, production sheen like wet black PVC) sound utterly late-'50s, mid-'70s, and late-'00s, all at the same time.
"Disco Mudma" revisits our old friend the jazzy guitar phrase from Black Science Orchestra's "New Jersey Deep," but only as an occasional flourish atop a scratchy, bumptious groove that's already festooned with grunted "Come on!"s, videogame noises and piano that prances sideways. And Kotey does especially nice things with the glow-in-the-dark electro grooves of "The Taste (Round & Brown)" and "Wunderbutt." Both tracks are idealized crossbreeds of Space Invaders and the NYC Peech Boys; both sound as much like right now as like 1982-or-so—disco and "disco" alike.
Tracklist 01. Urgent Workout Required
02. Feast Your Eyes
03. Banger Disco
04. Lucifer Went To Church
05. Gee Keeps On
06. Kali Dreams
07. Torro De Butt
08. The Taste (Round & Brown)
09. Morning Bump
10. Cracks All Gone
11. Disco Mudma
12. Wunderbutt
13. Take The Bus