Disco Inferno
An oral history of the British experimental rock act’s remarkable Five EPs.
it finally happened!
Disco Inferno - Footprints In Snow (1994)
As you might recall from my previous post on the sublime “The Last Dance”, Disco Inferno were a post post-punk act who played prerecorded samples while playing their guitars. Hence this song does exactly what it says on the tin: samples of footfalls through snow. I’ve had trouble listening to their ironically titled album D.I. Go Pop ever since an incident where I tried listening intently, fell asleep and woke up upset and disoriented—the band made some hard post-rock. Anyway, “Footprints” provides a warm and modest coda to a confrontational album. But do give “The Last Dance” a listen if you like affecting experimental rock music.
Disco Inferno - The Last Dance
I recently learned about indie’s “lost generation”, a set of modernist British bands that forged the path from early 90’s post-shoegaze indie to something like post-rock (Stereolab being the most obvious). According Tom Ewing in The Pitchfork 500 blurb for this song, Brit-pop stole attention from these innovative indie bands (hence, the “lost” generation).
Disco Inferno’s big conceit was using their guitars to set off samples as they played, and 1994’s D.I. Go Pop is a disorienting sampledelic experience. For instance, “New Clothes For The New World” sounds to me like a fucked up version Radiohead’s “Kid A”, back when that band still were best known for “Creep”. A reflection on time—“Was there ever a time like this?”—“The Last Dance” is quieter than anything on Go Pop, and the samples appropriately consist of ticking stopwatches. A wonderful, wonderful song.
