Midweek Music Review - Desktop: "Liberty" 12"

Desktop
"Liberty" 12"
Suburban Sprawl Music

Score: 8/10

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Let's blame Hercules and Love Affair. The Andrew Butler project that most people remember for "Blind", which featured Antony Hegarty belting his transsexual heart out, was not the first shot fired in the disco revival, but it was certainly the first bomb dropped. Now it seems you can't walk the Internet more than fifteen feet without tripping over a blog or two featuring a new artist for whom disco is a serious influence. James Murphy and Daft Punk are probably equally to blame for tearing down the walls wide enough for Butler's debut album to slip in.

That's not to say Butler, Murphy, et al. should be punished for this. If anything, the disco revival has been a Prince Charming kiss to dance music, where overdriven French house was the most vital thing going and, not unexpectedly, also the most frowned upon. Big and bold and loud and fun are no longer mutually exclusive from musically interesting and that's a very good thing. Dubstep and microhouse can be great, but one can only listen to Burial so many times before wanting to be, um, buried.

Desktop, the duo of Electric Six bassist Keith Thompson and Pop Project keyboardist Zach Curd, take the big and bold and loud and fun idea to heart on their latest three-song 12". They also take the musically interesting thing to heart. Whether it be the rather surprising stabs of solo piano in the breakdown of "Fired Up", or the strings and blorping synths that come out of nowhere on "Too Much".

But as intellectually interesting as those moments are, Desktop is much more enjoyable on the primal level, like when the ticking percussion joins the opening video game synths of "Liberty", or the chorus of "Too Much" explodes with energy after the group somehow makes the sentiment "I'm never gonna want your love" seem neither condemning or snide through sheer fun. And it's hard to listen to "Fired Up" without wanting to, um, fucking dance.

There are moments of weakness, of course. "Too Much" seems uncertain how to end, the primary synth riff on "Liberty" comes close to wearing out its welcome, and none of the songs lead into each other particularly well, but a 12" doesn't need to concern itself as much with pacing or track listing. It simply needs to have some killer songs. On that front, it's mission accomplished.