There’s a frighting moment during loudQUIETloud, the doco about the Pixes’ first tour after their reformation, when David Lovering their drummer suffers a breakdown onstage during gig. As the band look on in stunned confusion, Lovering continues to hammer away on his kit oblivious to the rest of the band or audience. The moment is at first almost comical, showing the deep disconnections within the group, but as he continues it becomes frightening and, unsure what to do, his bandmates abandon him on stage until a roadie comes to his rescue.
Unfortunately for Lovering, when he was trapped in his drumming loop there were many reasons that could have been the cause – the stress of touring again, a renewed drug addiction and probably most damagingly, the recent death of his father.
Repeating a sound beyond expectations can become both hypnotically compelling, as well as oddly scary, when the audience begins to wonder what’s happening, fearing that something’s wrong. It’s a question that rises during My Disco’s performances as they lock into their mechanically tight rhythms and repetitions. Thankfully for My Disco, though, their sound is a deliberate psychosis though despite its intention is no less gripping or unnerving.
With their bluntly minimal sound, it was practically inevitable that they’d record with Steve Albini. That’s exactly what they did for the new album, heading to Albini’s Electrical Audio studios in Chicago. Their first record featured the black title Cancer and while their follow up record has been released under the perkier title Paradise there’s been no let up in their bleak ways. If anything, it’s even sparser than its predecessor. This show at the Corner was the first of their Australian tour to push the album – a tour that will have the trio on the road till mid-May when they wrap up with a show in Hobart.
My Disco deliver minimalist rock, but the punters rocked up in droves to hear them launch their new record. The front of the pub in a jumble of chained up bikes suggesting that many an eager punter has saddled up for the cross-town ride to attend the gig. There are few easier ways to entice a crowd to the Corner than putting on local heroes for a mere tenner. Even the most impoverished arts student type or tightest of skinflints can cough up a mere ten dollars. It’ll only get you two slices at the glowing nest of soggy post-gig pizza next door anyway.
Playing a set exclusively drawn from the new record, the epically titled You Came To Me Like a Cancer Lain Dormant Until it Blossomed Like a Rose, is an early highlight; with its threateningly relentless reproduction of a single cord and vocal fragment. As My Disco’s Ben Andrews asked in a recent interview, ‘What’s wrong with having 32 bars of one chord and what’s wrong with repeating a vocal line 16 times?” Even though many of the punters at the Corner would have heard the track before, My Disco still provide a chilling tension with the live version. Not all the crowd are drawn in by the limited palate and set-list, easily distracted by their own hilarious antics, but most are hammered into submission by the pounding bass and drums.
Unfortunately My Disco’s closing number extended into a lengthy and directionless piece of distorted guitar wankery. It may have worked better mid-way through the performance, but leaves the audience confused and unsatisfied. For a while it seemed that there might be an encore – would they pull out the first album favourite Perfect Protection to close? – but after a smattering of claps and calls the house lights finally came up and that was that. An oddly ragged and confused close to for such a brutally tight live unit.
