UK: Nu disco troupe Hercules and Love Affair revives the spirit of Studio 54 with self-titled debut album

Record ID: 771693

  • Title: UK: Nu disco troupe Hercules and Love Affair revives the spirit of Studio 54 with self-titled debut album
  • Date: 19th March 2008
  • Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (RECENT) (REUTERS) CLOSE OF BUTLER'S FACE (SOUNDBITE) (English) ANDREW BUTLER, HERCULES AND LOVE AFFAIR PRODUCER, SAYING: "I didn't walk into the studio the pieces posing these two things (the tragedy of Greek mythology with the euphoria of dance music), rustling up this contradiction but I think it sort of happened and it happened partly
  • Embargoed: 3rd April 2008 13:00
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  • Reuters ID: LVA9F7GNS4R18H1FQ071A1Z2E6V6
  • Story Text: With the help of Mercury Prize-winning singer Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons, the Brooklyn-based band is set to tear up dancefloors with its heady mix of seventies opulence and Greek mythology.
    The band's debut single "Blind" features the talents of award-winning singer-songwriter Antony Hegarty, whose melancholic voice is more accustomed to singing about gender-morphing than over euphoric dance music. But there in lies the uniqueness of what is being touted 'the first great dance track of 2008' and 'party album of the year' by many British music journalists. "Blind" fuses house with disco in a nod to the last three decades of electronic music.
    Like label mates LCD Soundsystem and Hot Chip, Hercules and Love Affair bring a lyrical and musical intelligence to the dance genre which is sorely lacking with other artists. The band's label DFA records, under the umbrella of record giant EMI, calls them a group of pan-sexuals, referring to their various sexual preferences. They include transsexual Kim Ann Foxman, a New York City club promoter and jewellery designer; Nomi, a 24-year-old lesbian and regular contributor to the sisterly duo CocoRosie. And, of course, there's Hegarty, who pops up on several of the album's key tracks and had a hand in writing two of them.

    "I met him like seven or eight years ago. I was brought to a diner, an East Village diner, a friend brought me to this little dinner. It was really casual, like five people there. We were all sitting around the table like 'oh what do you do? what do you do?' which is a very common question in New York City before 'what's your name?' it's 'what do you do?' and Antony says, very casually 'oh I'm a singer'. In retrospect it's really funny to hear him say 'I'm just a singer' because he has the most incredible voice," said Andrew Butler, the brainchild and producer of Hercules and Love Affair.
    Hegarty and Butler became fast friends and during their four-year friendship discussed all matter of art, film, history, culture and most of all music. One day Butler asked the singer if he would like to lay his voice over a dance track. With the little money he made as a disco dj, Butler rented a ramshackle recording studio for 30 dollars an hour.
    But Butler said it didn't take long for the magic to happen: "Antony, his sense of rhythm, I've watched him perform so many times and his sense of rhythm without fail it always just blows me away. He has the kind of ear for rhythm that you could snap really slowly and he could dissect those snaps into really minute sections and he really, really gets it. He walked into the studio and he started dancing, singing his heart out. It was amazing how natural and how perfect immediately it seemed."
    As a child growing up in Washington and later Colorado, Butler was read Greek myths instead of fairy tales for his bedtime stories. He became immediately entranced by the mythical creatures whose movements and decisions dictated the earth and the mere mortals who lived there. His favourite story was of Hercules, the strongest man on earth whose tragic love affair with another man proved to be his downfall.
    It is the two opposing forces of the tragedy of Greek myths and the exhilaration of disco music that makes Hercules and Love Affair a unique band and what they refer to as 'nu disco'.

    "I didn't walk into the studio, into the pieces posing these two things (the tragedy of Greek mythology with the euphoria of dance music), rustling up this contradiction but I think it sort of happened and it happened partly because those myths, they explain life. And often they explain the beauty and the grace and ease of life can have in a moment and they talk about the pain and suffering that life can have in store for people," said Butler.
    Dance music has become a dirty word amongst the music industry whose focus on indie bands since the start of the new century is a clear indication of the record executives preference for most things guitar-driven. But Hercules and Love Affair are being touted as the great hope for a revival of the past dance sounds with new and more clever lyrical content.
    Butler said he only ever wanted to make music and when he was asked to put together an album, he turned inwards to reflect his life in music. What he never expected was for his music to take off, not just in his native New York City but thanks to the internet, the world can dance along with him.

    "It's hard I try not to look at the reviews and to look at the hype and stuff because sometimes I can lose sight. It's not ever done for anyone else but yourself. It's so exciting that people like it and they care but again, it's all sort of a bonus for me. In some ways I could never imagine having my music reaching people overseas," said Butler.
    The band is set to perform at a number of European music festivals in the summer.
    Hercules and Love Affair's self-titled debut album with its first single "Blind" is out now.
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