The devil in us

by JACK OATMON

Black Devil Disco Club is a disco fanatic and music writer’s dream come true. Firstly, no one really knew a damn thing about it four years ago when the Chemical Brothers and Aphex Twin began digging up tracks and re-releasing them. The group’s first self-titled release from 1978 is such a resonant ancestor to the post-millennial hybrid electro/disco/retro club movement that many people suspected the disc was actually fresh out of the Rephlex studios rather than a crate gem.

Beyond the mystery and eerie synchronicity with modern music, the actual production on the first album is so subtle, psychedelic and complete that it seemed as though a true genius had gone virtually unnoticed for nearly three decades. It was sensational to think that while Giorgio Moroder was doing tracks with Blondie, Donna Summer, David Bowie and Freddie Mercury, and the band Goblin was scoring films left and right with their progressive electronic rock, there was a reticent, introverted analog synthesizer guru quietly writing musical history to be left unheard for a generation. Rumour even has it that the record was produced entirely manually, with no MIDI controlling whatsoever.

HELL TO PLAY: Black Devil Disco Club’s Eight Oh Eight

Then in 2006 came the sinister, outrageously catchy follow-up album 28 After, complete with all manner of ear-twisting reverbed chaos and hammering 808 beats, amalgamated with spacey synth licks and nostalgic strings all set to a self-flagellating theme of moral ambiguity. Track names like “Constantly No Respect,” “I Regret the Flower Power” and “The Devil in Us” indicate the dark, nightmarish sounds on the record, all punctuated by bizarre samples and melancholy synth-sitar hooks. People had to know more and speculation abounded about the seemingly nonexistent “Joachim Sherylee” and “Junior Claristidge” to whom the production was credited. It has taken until now for it to become clear that a quiet guy name Bernard Fevre masterminded the project along with co-producer Jackie Giordano.

Just in time to cap off the intrigue and mystery of these two timeless French producers comes the third and apparently final installment in what is said to be a thematic trilogy of music. The new disc, Eight Oh Eight from Lo Recordings, certainly sounds like the conclusion of a narrative, with recurring themes coming to fruit and the first real hints of any optimism or forgiveness on any of the discs. Fevre’s effects-laden howling finally seems to offer a few answers amidst all the existential questions, bringing the familiar chorus style of “H Friend” from 1978 and “I Regret the Flower Power” from 2006 to its conclusion at the end of “Never No Dollars.” The final track, “For Hoped,” even seems to suggest a Pandora’s Box theme to the trilogy, featuring arguably the only happy, cathartic melodies of the releases. It touches on themes of innocence via jangling tambourines and childish xylophone melodies amidst the dreamy, nighttime soundscape, concluding softly but definitely.

By far one of the most exciting releases of the year as well as one of my personal favorite conceptual works, the Black Devil Disco Club series is a true masterpiece spanning 30 years and plenty of trivia, each second of which is as vital and telling in our era as it must have been in 1978 for the few lucky souls who happened upon it. Get it, and prepare for a diabolical, paranoid, infectious and rewarding ride.

NOT WITH A BANG, BUT WITH A WHIMPER… jack.oatmon@gmail.com