Long-time Quietus favourites My Disco have announced details of their new album. Titled Environment, it’ll be released on Regis’ Downwards Records this spring, and you can listen to a track from it, called ‘Rival Colour’, above.
The record follows My Disco’s trajectory of leaving behind their drum-heavy sound of yore for a frank minimalism that nevertheless still hums with terrific power and potential. You can read what the band have to say about their new album below.
My Disco play this year’s Raw Power Festival with GNOD and JK Flesh – get tickets here.
Can you tell us a little bit about the album?
My Disco: Environment was written and recorded in the space of a month at AndereBaustelle in Berlin, during the winter of 2018. With no preconceived ideas and next to no discussion before we all met there, I think the album is quite a concise musical exploration for us, embracing the confines of the space and our immediate surroundings.
At times it feels like an extension or sequel to Severe. It’s just darker, at times violent, but overall it feels like an ambient record. Boris Wilsdorf (Einstürzende Neubauten) engineered the recording. His freedom and experimentation in the studio is like no one else we’ve worked with before. It was perfect. We spent the first two weeks writing, which I think at the end of we had around 20 or so track ideas. We scrapped most, and ended up with the eight that now shape the album. We later mixed Environment with Cornel Wilzcek in Melbourne. His touch and understanding of our sound is just mind-blowing. He’s the silent fourth member of MY DISCO.
Why the decision to strip it even further back?
MD: Reducing our sound is never a conscious decision as such. It just seems to be an effect we like to work with. Silence and ambience is such an important ingredient to the suspense we look for in our music. For us, it’s as brutal as the heaviest shit we can riff on. That contrast is fixating.
Why is it exciting to release on Downwards?
MD: It’s an honour to be working with Downwards for this record. Karl’s enthusiasm and relentless musical output is an inspiration. We’re all huge fans. You introduced us, right? Well, he’s joining us on tour for this album in Australia next month.
With the way the sound of My Disco is going, is the logical endpoint complete silence?
MD: Silence is sexy.
