Top Bar
Musique Machine Logo Home ButtonReviews ButtonArticles ButtonBand Specials ButtonAbout Us Button
SearchGo Down
Search for  
With search mode in section(s)
And sort the results by
show articles written by  
 Review archive:  # a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Ebola Disco - Discography 1997-2017 [Old Captain - 2017]

This CD brings together a selection of tracks from the 20-year career of this North Queensland Power Electronics project. The Australian duo utilise static analogue tension, feedback squeals and pitched rhythms.

I've been involved in / listened to industrial / noise for over 25 years. At no point in my unglittered career have this motley crew ever shown up on the radar. Bugger it, they haven’t shown up on the gps!

A twenty year cd “discography” of twelve  tracks tracks does not, it seems, show that this band had much on offer to output, let a lone made much impact. Seven of those tracks are live recordings, two are cover versions (“I Wanna Be Your Dog” and “Germanik” by Stooges and SPK respectively), so three original tracks fleshed out.

So this is the complete works of a band who made no impact on a small scene that wasn’t exactly overcrowded to begin with. Now, from that statement you might be forgiven in thinking that I’ve made up my mind I don’t like it before I’ve even started writing this review. But you’d be wrong: I am several listens before I’ve made that decision.

This is very basic music, it’s quite coarsely constructed, and when I think of the shear power and pain of the likes of Sutcliffe Jugend, Consumer Electronics and Whitehouse, Ebola Disco just don’t seem to cut the mustard. And yet the afore mentioned bands were making harsher and more unsettling music nearly 20 years prior to Ebola Disco.

The twelve  tracks presented here begin with “River Ratz” a bass keyboard repeating riff that has squeals and distorted vocals over it. Following this is two &  a half minutes of almost found sound put through a distortion pedal (“Kamakaze”) which builds to a crescendo of noise before dying off slowly.

Then we have “Flies For Friends” seventeen minutes of Radio inteference mixed with a bass keyboard and distorted vocals. This takes a good twelve  minutes to build before it cuts off and the first cover version appears. SPK’s “Germanik”. The original is faster and more visceral, and doesn’t, if my memory serves me,  contain a Kenwood chef for a milisecond half way through! “I Wanna Be Your Dog” started with a radio or tv sound sample of a dog attack before going into the song itself, no one does this song better tha The Stooges so why bother trying?!

Ebola Disco seemed to run out of ideas quickly, this “discography” doesn’t show those ideas held up to much in the first place. So a disappointing release from a label I truly enjoyed past releases from...oh well you can't win them all!

Rating: 2 out of 5Rating: 2 out of 5Rating: 2 out of 5Rating: 2 out of 5Rating: 2 out of 5

Adam Skyes
Latest Reviews

Ebola Disco - Discography 1997-2017
This CD brings together a selection of tracks from the 20-year career of this North Queensland Power Electronics project. The Australian duo u...
160725   Terror In The Fog: The Wallac...
150725   Olion/ Dresser - Split
150725   Vilgoc & Inanition - Split
140725   Pierre Bastien & Michel Banab...
110725   Alternative TV - Direct Actio...
110725   Theme - Meditations on Space,...
110725   Pitchshifter - Peel Sessions...
100725   John Scott - Symptoms OST
100725   Torsofuck - Feasting On Carve...
100725   Dachra - Dachra(VOD)
Latest Articles

Matthew Holmes - Of razor-sharp t...
It’s fair to say the Sharksploitation genre is often tried, tested, and to be honest, tired. Fear Below is a 2025 Australian film that tries to do some...
180625   Matthew Holmes - Of razor-sha...
280525   The Residents - Visits From T...
090525   Ennaytch - Of walls, abused ...
150425   Dead, Dead Swans interview - ...
110325   Sebastian Tomb - Walls of unb...
040225   Alien Sex Fiend - Possessed B...
231224   Best Of 2024 - Music, Sound &...
191224   Splintered - Somewhere Betwee...
031224   Shane Ryan-Reid - Coerced and...
221024   Whore’s Breath - life’s h...
Go Up
(c) Musique Machine 2001 -2025. Twenty four years of true independence!! Mail Us at questions=at=musiquemachine=dot=comBottom