THE 5 EPS

First of all: I don't even know how to start this review. I could say that Disco Inferno is one of the best bands you never heard of, or how post rock doesn't even begin to describe them, or how they're the best plunderphonics group ever without even focusing on being a plunderphonics group, or "Flipping faders, Batman! These three Brits covered so much ground and always sounded so beautiful and perfect!", or mentioning how this goes above and beyond the great experimental EPs and killer collections thereof in the '90's... or I could string all that together into one long run on of gush for these demigods.

Released over three years in original format, and first collected by an enterprising internet bootlegger in '99, these fifteen cuts touch a mind boggling myriad of genres and styles and master each and every one as they are subsumed into a eudaimonic whole. I'll just list: post rock, post punk, plunderphonics, electronics, britpop, noise pop, noise rock, acoustica, ambient, IDM, concrete. It was always ethereal, always experimental, always flawless. Nature and urban samples and electronic washes both surrounded and acted as the foundation for the band's exercises in genre busting, with tracks variously spacing out, chugging along like an '80's post punk band on Talk Talk, forming a pop song, or, by the end, just losing themselves in the set dressing. Ian Crause could gently and forlornly speak through the sheets of sound, or sing along when the song called for it. And on top of all that, "The Atheist's Burden" uses the electronics for rhythm, and "It's A Kid's World" drives on the back of pounding drums plundered from you'll-know-where.

This really is something else, with no words for it. Outclassing all comers, both from the genres they took from and from fellow EP wielding experimentalists like The Beta Band and Brainiac, this stands as Disco Inferno's completed magnum opus. And thank goodness that this collection eventually got an official release.