Intriguing as it may be to imagine what Giorgio Moroder or Chic would sound like after sipping sizzurp, Discodeine don't attempt to fulfill the promise of their name. For better or worse, this pairing of veteran French dance producers Pilooski and Pentile sticks exclusively to the disco side of the divide, crafting multilayered, largely instrumental glitterball workouts. Honestly though, a few swigs of purple drank wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world for the duo's eponymous debut album, if only because it would've at least ensured some kind of switch-up in tone and pace. Instead, Discodeine settles too comfortably into a consistent four-on-the-floor groove that ends up sounding an awful lot like a rut.
Pilooski and Pentile's project first came to prominence last year with the terrific disco-pop single, "Synchronize", featuring Jarvis Cocker. It's included on this album and still sounds great-- too great, because pretty much everything else on the record pales in comparison. Discodeine don't otherwise seem too interested here in sculpting pop songs, as only two other cuts utilize vocals more substantial than stray wordless coos (Matias Aguayo's caddish whispers on the opening "Singular" and Baxter Dury's limp Air impression on "D-A"). That'd be fine, except many of the duo's strictly instrumental tracks are so static that it feels like they ought to be hosting vocal melodies and refrains just to sound whole. Instead of compositions that evolve in emotionally or thematically interesting ways, Discodeine generally prefer to just lock into a tempo and then pile melodic and rhythmic bits atop it.
Some of these elements are admittedly quite nifty, particularly the bashing percussion that peppers "Falkenberg" and "Grace" or the insistent little synth tones driving "Ring Mutilation". Still, dance music of the sort Discodeine seem intent on making demands ebb and flow, a push and pull that takes the listener places and wrings emotion from its tension. Yet only occasionally does it feel like there's any real logical progression taking place here (for instance, there's certainly a journey undertaken on the proggy closer "Figures in a Soundscape", but the movement feels arbitrary and aimless rather than purposeful). "Antiphonie" manages the trick pretty masterfully, with its busy acoustic guitars and foreboding piano chords giving way to pure disco thump, but unfortunately it's the exception rather than the rule. As for much of the rest of Discodeine, well, five to nine minutes of even the most artfully layered wheel-spinning is still wheel-spinning.
