Electric Independence

Hercules & Love Affair

DJ Bennetti by James Knight

There’s rarely anything positive to say about the Daily Mail or the Mail on Sunday, but it wasn’t the toughest decision in the world to buy a copy of the paper the other weekend when it offered a free copy of Jean Michel Jarre’s Oxygene album on CD. Imagine the number of people across the country hearing this synth odyssey for the first time, 30 years after it was originally released. Wonder if it triggered any flashbacks in middle managers long settled in suburbia. If the show’s not sold out, it would be worth catching Jarre perform Oxygene in its entirety at the Royal Albert Hall on March 30, mainly for the spectacle of the maestro plucking laser beams with oven gloves as he did in that spellbinding concert in Houston for the doomed Challenger shuttle in 1986. As promotional freebies go, the give-away of Oxygene is up there with the Soul Jazz Records toothbrush and toothpaste “emergency kit” Patrick from Sounds of the Universe gave me when I nipped in to the shop recently. It’s a handy post-rave accessory; that dreaded journey home at 7 AM seems a little more bearable with minty-fresh breath, some self-respect restored. Talking of promo bits, the pre-release CDs of Hercules & Love Affair’s “Blind” single continue to pile up in the office as EMI, which helps out DFA when it suits them, capitalise on the sudden interest they’ve manufactured in what would normally be a fairly marginal dance act with a fruity singer. The Sun doesn’t usually recommend gay New York disco to its readers, but for a brief period its website made much of the fact that it was the only place UK viewers could see the steamy, Saam-directed promo for “Blind” which sensationally stars Jaime Winstone (unless they Googled it or went to Pitchfork). With an otherworldly vocal by Hercules’ pal Antony Hegarty, “Blind” is a distinctive, classic-sounding disco number, its churning rhythm reminiscent of “Magnifique” by Magnifique. There’s plenty more like it on the self-titled album, too, notably “Raise Me Up”, on which Antony sings, perhaps, of the trials of Hercules; “I slept with rocks, I slept with stones”, he wails. Tasteful and tuneful, with one foot in vintage disco, the other in late 80s house, the album could’ve been made 20 years ago, but only in New York. There’ll be scores of interviews and New York-based face-to-face features with Hercules’ Andy Butler in all the magazines in the upcoming months, which wouldn’t have happened if the record had come out on Environ. Say what you like about the state of EMI, but they still know how to exploit an artist (in a good way). “It’s funny,” says Butler when we speak on the telephone, “because at one point I was talking to Environ about putting a record out.” From Denver, Colorado, Butler is a red-haired 29-year-old who’s lived in New York for a decade, having survived electroclash on a diet of crazy Smylon Nylon compilations made by his mentor, NYC outsider and Welshman Chris Brick, who ran the cult Center For The Dull shop. Don’t get him wrong, Butler loves a lot of music made today, but he prefers the spirit of older music. He’s been a huge disco fan since he was 19, and probably secretly wishes it was the summer of 1974 and Fire Island was aglow. Whenever he’s in London, his number one destination is Horse Meat Disco. And who can blame him? Vice: So, the big question: in Greece, will you be known as Herakles & Love Affair? Andy Butler: Oh gosh, I like that you asked me that. I was thinking if we’re going to be true to the whole Greek myth and everything, I would do Herakles. It’s very Western to conflate the two cultures and combine them and be like one name for this and one for that, but if I was a purist I would do Herakles. It could be a side-project. What do you feel is missing from music today? In disco music, people were brought in to be really musical. Musicians were invited to expressly be truly musical, and it wasn’t about minimising their input, wasn’t about the texture of a string, it was, Bring in that string player and let him do his thing, you know what I mean? And similarly with techno, early techno was more adventurous. I’m a huge fan of that early Warp and deep house stuff, and that was kind of minimal before minimal, like the current meaning of minimal. It was minimal to me in that it was really stripped down, all of the components were really, really considered, and they made a ton of sense, sonically and musically. It was very coherent music. And today? Well, for instance, with a lot of these disco edits, I feel that the musicality is taken out of them. Sometimes something new and interesting is done in these modern edits. But I think usually they take the extra-musical parts out of the song, or they take, quote-unquote, the gayness out of the song, or what they take is hokey, but in music a chord progression is a chord progression. There are tastes involved, but there is nothing essentially wrong with going from this key to that key. I think that the spirit of musicians doing their thing is an important part of music, and that’s why I like older music. Elsewhere, word reaches us of the DFA’s fondness for all that excellent analogue disco released in limited quantities by south London’s hot-to-trot Dissident imprint. Their Death From Abroad sub-label plans to license a number of tracks for the US market, meaning you’ll now be able to get hold of the records. Meanwhile, Dissident burrows deeper into its groove with its latest batch of singles: a late-night fister by Heartbreak’s Ali Renault called “Our World Is…”, “Hungry Ghosts” by Gatto Fritto, “Cheddar Heights” by Kruton, an alias of Binary Chaffinch’s Milo Smee, and the Helium Robots’ “Metallic Dawn”. Also this month, Mathew Jonson returns with an enchanting new single, “Symphony for the Apocalypse”, on his Wagon Repair label. Sinuous and serpentine like his earlier “Marionette” number, this is ragged Doomsday disco for those who find his Cobblestone Jazz project rather posed. Two massive rave weekenders on the horizon deserve a mention. First up, BLOC Weekend takes place on March 14-16 in a holiday camp near Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, and offers a bewildering array of techno and electro stars, including those Underground Resistance guys, Dave Clarke, Convextion, Monolake, the Skull Disco and Rephlex crews, Legowelt, a reformed Red Snapper live, and stacks more. Let’s hope some girls turn up. For tickets and all information, head to blocweekend.com. The other is Bang Face—The Weekender, in which the mighty monthly rave bastion does the decent thing and extends its hardcore madness over three days down in Camber Sands on April 25–27. Possibly the only festival to feature both Dopplereffekt and Chas & Dave, the line-up rocks hard: Squarepusher, Jackson & His Computer Band, Altern-8. Model 500, Ceephax, Bogdan Raczynski, DJ Scotch Egg, Venetian Snares and Normski all appear. Info and tickets here: bangface.com/weekender. Finally, grazie mille to DJ Benetti, whose masterful set at Cocadisco at the end of last month was the highlight of an incredible evening. PIERS MARTIN