No Mountains Left To Climb, Or So I'm Told

Summer's Last Sound / Love's Stepping Out Disco Inferno Che Released: January 1991 Highest UK Chart Position: Did Not Chart Available on: Not Available

POP MUSIC IS A LINE, A ONE-DIMENSIONAL JOURNEY OF ELVIS TO DYLAN TO BEATLES TO SEX PISTOLS TO JOY DIVISION TO NEW ORDER TO THE SMITHS TO BLUR TO OASIS TO THE WHITE STRIPES. A relentless progression, always moving onward, rushing to the future, couple with lists that helpfully tell you that Nevermind is ten places better than What's Going On?

This is, of course, complete bobbins. And limiting. Wouldn't it be better if we thought of it as a two-dimensional plane? We could describe The Beatles as y = 2x + 1963, and plot their influences by travelling along the line, noting cross-influences by intersecting lines. And then extend it into three dimensions, creating an image from detailing all the connections for every band. Would it just be a mess of squiggles and discontinuities, or could we find a pattern, an image, a message in the chaotic noise?

And so we find ourselves, as we inevitably do, with Disco Inferno. A band that, if rendered upon our imaginary graph, would find themselves out in the distance, passing through The Art of Noise for the briefest of moments before heading out into the unknown. A band turned inside out, guitars hooked up to computers which triggered samples, resulting in a tuneful cacophony of sound, the final evolution of Spector's Wall. And here, with this EP, Disco Inferno sent back a message to the rest of music, much like the Voyager probe sending images as it flew past Pluto and out of the confines of our solar system.

Summer's Last Sound is a mash of computer-generated tones, the cries of seagulls, and depressing lyrics. Immigrants being kicked to death, the increasing price of bread, mass graves, and the desire of wanting to keep moving. The computer shimmers and shines, sounding like the sea as the gulls come in for their carrion and we fly away again to a new destination. It is settling and unsettling, nervy and calm, centred but distanced. And almost without peer.

But it's Love's Stepping Out that reveals the heart of the band, a core that clings to romance and optimism as the world crumbles around them. Love's Stepping Out is the band approaching the wall of the universe, the point when they can travel no further on our graph, they have reached the edge of the page and there is nowhere else to go. But at that edge, they can see glimpses of another world, of new dimensions, of an undiscovered beauty. And they sent it back, with something that sounds like a harp, yet is clearly not a harp, with church bells in the distance, with an otherworldly sound that could be a screech, that could be another seagull, or could just be random noise, Against this, singer Ian Crause delivers ugly lyrics; kicking, screaming, fighting, and self-obsessed. Perhaps it's the conflict between the words and music that make this song so beautiful; the music wins in the end, cooling the rage with the sounds of the new universes, the new possibilities that await us all.

This was just the first of five EPs that Disco Inferno released. They would continue to explore the far reaches of the music cosmos before tragedy struck when their equipment was stolen. They were forced to return to the centre, cursed with the knowledge of not being able to recreate their earlier glories. The centre closed in around them, sealing off the hidden knowledge, and today, they are almost erased from history, But not quite. The Internet came along and gave us hope. In the dark corners of file-sharing networks, you can find them, waiting. Waiting for you to listen.