Dave Graham: End of Disco EP
Concrete Plastic

Dave Graham's End of Disco EP, the third installment in Concrete Plastic's Digital Plastic series, inhabits as unusual a universe as one might expect from someone involved in the “prog-pop duo Cnut and genre-bending, orchestral-noise-prog outfit Regolith” (the London, UK-based composer's own words), and who cites Messiaen, Zappa, Rautavaara, Stevie Wonder, The Flaming Lips, Bartok, Queen, Stockhausen, and others as influences. Notwithstanding the roaring electro-disco of “You're Dancing” and the electric, disco-funk grooves of “I Feel Like Dancing,” the material often sounds like some viral variant of disco, especially “End of Disco” whose spastic electro-funk has the makings of a good tune but is derailed by mercurial downbeats; a little more coherence would be preferable. The biggest detour occurs with the junkyard blues-funk of “Beautiful Lady” where Graham's vocal growl trades punches with a hot-wired electric guitar. The four tracks are royally brash and exuberant, with the EP title meant, presumably, in that “it's the end of the world so let's party” kind of spirit. Strange days indeed.

October 2007