In the late ’50s, pianist-turned-Tiki-titan Martin Denny began to mimic the sound of bullfrogs and tropical birds that could be heard from the bandstand at his Oahu cocktail bar. From that simple decision, the genre “exotica” was born, in which Denny grabbed whatever instruments outside the continental U.S. that caught his eye to weave them into leisurely living-room listening. One of his tunes, a cheeky approximation of Japanese court music called “Firecracker,” struck Japan’s Yellow Magic Orchestra two decades later when they covered it. YMO's version subsequently got spun by the likes of Afrika Bambaataa and J-Lo.
And now comes another layer of interpretation as Norwegian producer Todd Terje and a live band present their version of “Firecracker,” making for a Scandinavian nu-disco take on an electro-Japanese version of a lounge simulacrum of Japanese music. Terje’s itchy, perky six-and-a-half minute spin frets little about technocracy and orientalism, instead finding a groove to dilate and zag around in. Terje built his career as a master of the disco edit, that practice (revived in the early 21st century) of taking a song and chopping it up so as to accentuate and heighten the dancefloor euphoria of it. But before there was “disco music” in the early ’70s, astute DJs took from music of all stripes, genres and countries.
It’s that open-eared approach that informs The Big Cover-Up, as Terje and pals cover “Firecracker” as well as a handful of strange tunes that—thanks to some venturesome DJs and producers—somehow cohered as part of the disco canon, from Greek composer Vangelis’ “La Féte Sauvage” to “Baby Do You Wanna Bump,” performed by Boney M. Take “Disco Circus,” a sidelong track from the late ’70s from Martin Circus, a now-forgotten French prog rock band. Recorded as a cash-in on the “disco” trend, its rubbery groove and pillow-soft “ahhhh” might have never escaped the decade had pioneering disc jockey François Kervorkian not stripped out all the rock elements, toughened up the rhythm, and pumped up the stomps and chants into a swirling classic (one that Todd Terry soon updated as a house track). Terje and cohorts audibly relish the vocal gibberish and the spiraling rhythms of François K.’s remix, though with the addition of the ARP and extra percussion, it ranges into LCD Soundsystem territory.
If only these homages were matched by the remixes in terms of energy, as a fun-enough maxi-single bogs down as a double-pack. While something like “Disco Circus” was invigorated as a remix, these additional mixes add little. Mexico’s Daniel Maloso adds drunken brass and some McCartney II strummed guitar to “Bump” but not much more. The Idjut Boys’ Dan Tyler accentuates the silly metallophone melody and then plops spacey FX atop of “Firecracker,” while I’d be hard pressed to differentiate between Terje’s take on Vangelis and Prins Thomas’ own remix.
These songs were primarily studio creations and in covering them, there’s the sense that whereas Terje would have previously just tinkered with them as edits in his studio, now they’re just goofy numbers to jam out with real live players. At least for the first half of The Big Cover-Up, Terje and band have fun paying tribute to that era, where under the flashing lights of the discotheque, borders and nationalities began to bump and blur as one wild party.
