There’s homage and there’s homagé. Whilst The Rapture imitate almost to the point of exactitude the clanking, cantankerous punk-funk posturing of the early eighties post-punk scene (what little I know of it, anyway) another disco-punk lynch-pin is fathoming how create something far more gloriously original. True, the cod-disco beats are all present and correct but tracks like ‘Too Much Love’ are just too goddam black and intuitive to be the spill of some shambling, computer generated music-geek – as much as James Murphy may want us to believe otherwise.
After what seems like an eternity of waiting, 2005 sees the release of his debut album, LCD Soundsystem. Yes, we’ve been treated to a bevy of little beauts along the way: the early singles “Losing My Edge”, “Give It Up”, and “Yeah” – but who was to prepare us for this? The beantnik, surf-guitar stylisms of ‘Tribulations’, the electro-kraut rapping of ‘Movement’, the mellow, organic Eno-isms of the Beatles-esque ‘On Repeat’ and ‘Great Release’, the dirty, scuzzy bloops and buzzes and the sublime harmonies on the otherwise icy ‘Disco Infiltrator’ – everyone of them a surprise and everyone of them a winner.
For purveyors of cool though CD2 is where it’s at. ‘Give It Up’, ‘Losing My Edge’ plus two versions of ‘Yeah’ – the ‘crass’ version and the ‘pretentious’ version – funked-up to the nines with electric piano, shuffling hi-hats and no shortage of keys and sequencers.
Murphy has cleverly provided both cool and a riposte to cool in one sensibly spliced collection. Music geek on the one hand, style-pilot on the other. The record may be too uneven and polar for some. But it’s nothing short of a major accomplishment for others.