Best of 2008: #4 Hercules and Love Affair

Maybe I'm just a retroist but I've been extremely suspicious of modern disco in that I prejudge it all to be a pale shadow of 70s NYC disco - much like, until I listened to Erykah Badu and D'Angelo, I casually dismissed nu-soul* as irrelevant when there's still so much undiscovered 60s and 70s soul to investigate (which is a confusion between a genre's popular peak and its actual potential). But Hercules and Love Affair sounds so good, it'd be impossible for a disco fan to ignore, whatever disco's modern standing. Don't gimme none of that "Blind" bumming, cos "Hercules' Theme" is where it's at: a ridiculously smooth horns & strings led groove that amazingly starts boiling over towards the end. I could easily fit that into a set right between Eddie Kendricks and Double Exposure and no-one would notice the 2008 song (like I used to do with "New Me" and "Music Will Not Last" from Jamie Lidell's Multiply. Maybe it was just that no-one was listening). OK so "Blind" is pretty great too. But I also love the way Hercules & Love Affair works as an album - not a collection of great 12" - by subtly varying in style between each song to keep things interesting. There's no filler, no B-sides, no beat bars solely for mixing purposes: it's an album for headphones, for striding, and for dancing.
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*why 'nu-soul'? what's wrong with 'new soul' which is a precise description of what it is? Does the more stylized 'nu' make it more glamorous or exciting or something?

Hercules and Love Affair @ Classic Grand, Glasgow, May 30

live review for the skinny
(***)

Overheard in the Classic Grand crowd - “That Antony’s been on one helluva diet” - as a chiselled Amazonian goddess takes the rotund Mr Hegarty’s place for lead vocals on Blind. It’s only her presence that assures us we’re not looking at UB40, but sadly her vocals aren’t as agile as her dancing. Hercules And Love Affair’s brilliant self-titled debut LP uses a number of singers, but Anthony’s absence wouldn’t have been noticed if the replacements hadn’t been both flat and too quiet in a muffled mix. There’s only so much anyone could fail with such great source material: Andy Butler’s unashamedly retro homages to New York disco and Chicago house get everyone flailing, but there are slower songs too, like Iris, which demonstrate an album focus uncommon in a 12”-based dance culture. But hopefully DJ Butler realises that reproducing that well with a live band is harder than spinning records: not only must everyone hit their notes every time, but we must be able to hear that they are.