About
Great Disco works like a tense thriller: It grabs hold of you and doesn’t let go. Before you know it, you’re hopelessly lost. Open to dirty secrets. Hooked for a night. For a few weeks. Your whole life. There’s always a secret hidden deep in the maelstrom. The deeper the true substance is concealed, the more powerful the effect, the thicker the shackles.
BLACK VAN is the coming together of KoweSix, usually standing tall with Moonbootica, and Kris Menace. Independently of one another, they have chalked up countless singles, artist albums, mix compilations and remixes for various heavyweights. BLACK VAN sees the duo creating music that massages the cerebral lobes whilst making sure your ass still shakes. BLACK VAN’s music is an elegant swagger moulding their varied and whimsical musical tastes – from ancient BBC electronica to eccentric songwriters and avant-garde Lego House – into classic song structures. Honouring their debut release, entitled 'Yearning' (which rapidly became one of the bestselling NU-Disco tunes in recent years) a number of magazines and blogs have already highhlighted the duo's unabashed pop asthetic. The names of ideal collaboraters are doing the rounds – and rumours of a team up with DFA's hotly tipped Holy Ghost! have already surfaced on the net.
The imaginary BLACK VAN thriller has a simple plot. A narrative free of unnecessary diversions, uncluttered by ponderous adjectives slowing the pace. The few embellishments that do grace the story prove all the more striking. Apart from one or two unusual minor characters, everything appears quite normal to begin with. It takes a while for the whole truth to emerge and there is indeed a whole lot more going on. Nothing is what it seems. The BLACK VAN duo have been faithful to the same modus operandi since their debut. In the foreground, we are talking Disco, in the background as well yes, but somehow completely different. Sound is one thing, freedom is another. Libraries are now populated by weighty tomes dealing with the history of modern dance music. A certain type of verbose Disco historian has emerged, with an old name at the ready for every new sound. Whilst smart alecs run the risk of falling into the San Andreas Fault of differentiation between Cosmic Disco, Cosmic Afro and Space Disco, brave musicians and DJs like BLACK VAN have seized the opportunity and are finding the whole scenario child’s play.
Never have there been so many parallel worlds in existence. Rarely has it been easier to sneak basic, quirky preferences into one’s music, or quote clever references by stealth, without launching oneself into the indie ghetto. It can only happen in a period of flux. When the DJ seems to make fit what doesn’t fit. Square peg, round hole. When musicians discover freedoms and opportunities beyond craving for admiration. When they replenish Disco with something they love.
BLACK VAN don't really care if anyone consciously traces the trail of their enthusiasms – their music can
be enjoyed on a basic level, just like a potboiler. No guilty conscience required. But like any thriller
worth its salt, BLACK VAN also operates on a second level as well, a place of secret depths and substance.
Yes, all that stuff about 'deepness', BLACK VAN really do delve deep, deeper, deepest, all the way down to...
Love. Which, as we know, lasts forever...