Little Joy
After two albums of brazen post-punk intensity, My Disco are finally learning to relax, writes SHAUN PRESCOTT.
What is My Disco about in 2010? This Melbourne three-piece, so emblematic of the DIY punk/rock mentality of Australian underground music during the last decade, has come to embody two principles. On the one hand, they’ve abided the literal concerns of DIY: doing it yourself, organising your own shows, zero compromise. On the other hand, they carry the flame of a more nebulous ideal, one that’s gradually dying: a vaguely politicised, form-as-message approach where nothing is taken for granted. Form is a direct reflection on lyricism and vice versa. Conceptual cohesiveness is of the utmost import. These self-imposed limitations have stifled their previous records, but Little Joy finally sees My Disco relax and thus expand.
Following their more-of-the-same-but-better second record Paradise*, *Little Joy* reeks of a band still dedicated to their aesthetic but determined to stretch it further. Despite what their publicists tell you, though, *Little Joy isn’t a massive step forward. They’ve just stretched their components out and allowed them to resonate. My Disco is comfortable being demonstrative now. If you enjoyed them for their tightness and competence before, you may fall off the wagon with this record. Also, brevity isn’t a concern here like it has been in the past. There’s the sense that this album is meant to encapsulate previously untapped reserves of nuance, of which there’s clearly a lot.
There was a lot of talk (generated by the band and publicist) that minimal techno was an influence on this record. The truth is that rock bands rarely achieve those ends with rock instruments. Techno is artificial; mechanical. One of its main appeals is its artifice – its inherent emptiness – and the gaps between sounds are crucial to its effect. A manually played instrument, especially for a rock band like My Disco, rarely captures that mood. Which is why a track like ?Young? – where the influence is most obvious – feels so wasteful. Its eight minutes of rock’s negative space: neither a riff nor a mood, just a texture that would normally fall between the more important components of a song. ?Young? aims to mine the space in between, but it only lands upon sounds that we’re too familiar with, and despite their best intentions My Disco are incredibly boring when they take this sledgehammer approach.
??Little Joy? reeks of a band still dedicated to their aesthetic but determined to stretch it further.?
Thankfully, ?Young? is an exception to the rules of Little Joy*. This record is as ?pop? as we’ve ever dared to expect from My Disco, in the sense that the moods are varied, adaptable, and immediately gratifying. ?Sunray? drapes a sentimental and sparkling guitar melody over a minimal tom-and-high-hat pulse, resulting in one of the least ambiguous and lovely songs My Disco has ever written. Each sustained chord aches in a way this previously very boyish group would never allow. ?Lil? Joy? follows, with a brittle calm reminiscent of Earth’s later records: if you can imagine the cover art for *Paradise, at night, populated by strange glowing rodents, you’re getting close.
My Disco’s music is visually evocative nowadays, whereas previously it seemed to merely represent itself: when listening back to Cancer* and *Paradise* I can only imagine a three-piece playing in a sweaty warehouse space, but *Little Joy is altogether more imaginative and illustrative. On this record, My Disco have shaken off their tight stylistic shackles and become a lot more fun to listen to. You can get a lot out of this record besides grit and punk rock poise. It’s excellent that they’ve moved on.