
Black Magic Disco - S/t [Important Records - 2007]The Great titled Black Magic Disco is a new collaboration between the Opalio brothers of My Cat Is An Alien, Tom Greenwood 0f Jackie-O Motherfucker & Ramona Ponzini of Painting Petals On Planet Ghost, Praxinoscope- this finds the Opalio brothers swaping space bound world for more surreal earthbound improv freefall, with maybe the odd trip to a creaking retro space station. The collaboration offers up a very dense sound picture with Greenwood's warped blues guitar work mixing with the Opalio’s brother's more gentle tinkling sound craft and lifting to the skies guitar sails. Greenwood also mixes inventive often bizarre turntable work, and Ramona's Japanese vocals & chime pitter-patter. It seems you've tuned into some strange radio station- that as well as offer up hazy and in and out of focus surreal sound worlds, also brings to mind slow dancing figures in strange melted neo light/ half- light rooms. Their faces smudge out, their limbs moving in slow blurred motion – a between realties dance floor, clearly the Black magic disco. The album split into four tracks with each track lasting around the 20 minute mark, and each having this floating /morphing seemly total free vibe. Ideas and elements slide by join together then slip apart once more- weird turntable cinematics & world music chants hover, murky psychedelic blues guitar craft surfaces and dramatics, tinkling and soothing chimes and toys swim in the air, mystical female vocals and chatter, vertigo inducing guitar folds and whine. Really you don’t know what they’ll slide into your ears next This debut is a wonderful free, oddly comforting and strangle sensual piece of drifting sound work primed perfect to tune in and drop out to. Letting you freefalling through Black Magic Disco strange half realties.      Roger Batty
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