This came out in 2000 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
“There’s gonna be people power in the disco hour,” sings Tjinder Singh, succinctly summing up the politics of dancing as previously practised by his Anglo-Indian electro-pop outfit Cornershop.
It’s the same philosophy championed by Clinton, the new combo featuring Singh and Ben Ayres. That stance isn’t all that’s familiar — Clinton’s sound is a mesh of funk, reggae, hip-hop, rock, country and just about anything else that comes to mind, pretty much just like Cornershop. What’s different is that there’s less of the Bollywood sitar-rock of, say, Brimful of Asha. Instead, Singh and Ayres opt for disco grooves not far from the ticky-tacky world of Beck’s Midnite Vultures, pecked out on cheap synthesizers, simple samplers and repetitively robotic beat boxes. Unfortunately, the key word there is repetitive — most of these songs plink and plunk on long after they’ve run out of things to say. Sometimes, sadly, Disco takes you all the way to discontent.
