BERNARD FEVRE
Black Devil Disco Club Presents The Strange New World Of… Bernard Fevre
LCD078
Lo Recordings 2009
14 Tracks. 43mins50secs

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Bernard Fevre may not be a household name, yet this pioneering French musician became known as Black Devil in the late seventies when he released Disco Club, a now legendary and extremely rare slice of electronic-fuelled disco which led, some years later, to be sampled by the Chemical Brothers, featured on Luke Vibert’s Further Nuggets, and, under the Black Devil Disco Club, to a string of albums published on Lo Recordings. Three years prior to Disco Club, in 1975, Fevre published a visionary collection of strange sounds organised in chirpy little sonic vignettes, entitled The Strange World Of Bernard Fevre. Thirty five years on, Fevre has unearthed this long forgotten opus, dusted it off, possibly added to it, and repackaged it into The Strange New World Of Bernard Fevre, delivered now once again via Lo Recordings.

This album, like its original version, has very little in common with the afro funky disco Fevre dispenses nowadays. Instead, the fourteen tracks collected here are representative of the futuristic sound that was being developed in the early to mid seventies. Continue Reading »

DARK CAPTAIN LIGHT CAPTAIN
Remix EP
LOAF31D
LOAF/Lo Recordings 2009
05 Tracks. 27mins19secs

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One of the revelations of last year, on the back of a beautifully crafted album, Miracle Kicker, a couple of EPs and a pretty extensive tour which has taken them on both sides of the Atlantic, London-based Dark Captain Light Captain have handed some of their most emblematic tracks to a handful of well-wishers, giving them free reigns to do whatever they pleased with them. Achieving the impossible, the resulting remixes manage to radically interpret the chosen songs while retaining the essence of both the band and the album. Continue Reading »

SUSUMU YOKOTA
Mother
LCD73
Lo Recordings 2009
13 Tracks. 52mins22secs

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One can never presume to know in which shape and form Susumu Yokota may reappear, so wide-spread and iconoclastic is his impressive body of work. He has successfully tried his hand at pretty much every form of electronic-based music there is, from dance to ambient and electronica to experimental composition. His latest venture finds him exploring the outer boundaries of pop music, and for that, he has enrolled a number of friends to lay vocals on his compositions, including Efterklang’s lead vocalist Casper Clausen, singer-songwriter Nancy Elizabeth, whose debut album was released a couple of years ago on Leaf, The Chap’s Claire Hope and Panos Ghikas, Caroline Ross, Our Broken Garden’s Anna Bronsted, and Japanese songstress Kaori.

Far from being a straight-forward affair, Mother rarely settles for long on a particular idea. Continue Reading »

DARK CAPTAIN LIGHT CAPTAIN
Miracle Kicker
LOAF18
LOAF/Lo Recordings 2008
10 Tracks. 43mins38secs

With just three singles under their belt, London-based Dark Captain Light Captain have rapidly established themselves as one of the best new bands the capital has produced recently, gaining praises and accolades from the likes of Zane Lowe (Radio 1), Mark Radcliffe (Radio 2) and John Kennedy (XFM) amongst others, and their recent single Circles was described by Pete Tong as being ‘a thing of aural beauty’.

Originally the project of guitarist and vocalist Dan Carney and multi-instrumentist Neil Kleiner, DCLC now also count the talents of Giles Littleford (guitar, voice), Chin Of Britain (drums), Mike Cranny (bass, voice) and Laura Copsey (brass, voice). On their debut album, Miracle Kicker, the band weave a rich patchwork of lightly psychedelic vocal harmonies, swirling melodies and swiping acoustic arrangements, peppered with discreet electronic brushes. Continue Reading »

BLACK DEVIL DISCO CLUB
Eight Oh Eight
LCD69
Lo Recordings 2008
06 Tracks. 32mins26secs

Black Devil Disco Club have probably already guaranteed their own place in the musical annals of the era by mere virtue of their curio status. According to the official line, Rephlex unearthed their rarer than rare 1978 debut Disco Club in 2006, and released it again to an unsuspecting nation. How an album goes unheard for so long before re-emerging on the label of known prankster Richard D. James is anyone’s guess, but the truth is that nobody really seems sure who they are. Two shadowy Parisian musicians seem to be the main culprits. But many point the finger elsewhere, with James or Luke Vibert in the role of svengali. Continue Reading »