Hercules and Love Affair Hercules and Love Affair by: Dan Osmolowski Fri:16-May-08 Label: DFA Year: 2008 WB rating 85 out of 100

Hercules seems the perfect moniker for New York DJ Andrew Butler to bring pure disco back into the music lover’s consciousness. The heavily mythologised Greek hero’s feats of courage and strength find parallels in Butler’s bravado in reincarnating a genre that (in America, at least) had previously only found a home in the dance-punk explosion that we currently find ourselves at the tail end of. It’s fortunate then that Butler brings such an enthusiasm, knowledge and love of the late 70s and early 80s into the present without sounding derivative or cheesy.

Produced with the assistance of the DFA’s Tim Goldsworthy and featuring a slew of musicians and guest contributors, Hercules and Love Affair is a vibrant outing that rolls with an organic, warm feel. It is Butler’s knack for lush composition and the sheer ability of the outfit’s collective musicianship that sticks with you after repeated listenings of what may well come to be many people’s favourite record of the year.

Lead single, ‘Blind’ (one of four tracks to feature Antony Hegarty on vocals) is a perfect encapsulation of the Hercules sound: rubbery bass, thumping 4/4 beat, open high-hats and celebratory, joyous brass. Hegarty’s appearance on HALA is not a cursory attempt at boosting the profile of a relative unknown in Butler. Rather, Hegarty and Butler go some way back, with Antony first recording ‘Blind’ four years ago – long before critical acclaim came knocking. His voice is perfectly suited to the disco aesthetic. Its resonant, androgynous qualities tie in perfectly with the ‘camp’ dance floor fillers and anchor the more melancholy, down tempo efforts with aplomb. Indeed, it is the more reflective numbers that hoist Hercules and Love Affair above the status of mere party starters and pill poppers.

Opener, ‘Time Will’ is not an obvious choice to raise the curtain on what is, ostensibly, a dance album. Hegarty spins a narrative, perhaps inspired by Butler’s interest as a young man in the fabled Hercules’ pursuit of love with another man, over some mid-tempo percussion and echo-filled synth notes that beautifully convey a sense of longing. It doesn’t take long for things to ramp up, however. ‘Hercules Theme’ follows with one large slab of funky disco courtesy of some classic string stabs, bouncing organ and a positively wailing trumpet and trombone combo. ‘You Belong’ hits the fast-forward button to the early years of Chicago House with its sampled vocal snippet, electro reverb and female soul vocal.

Despite being able to make reference to particular movements in dance music, HALA never resorts to imitation and therein lies the beauty of Butler’s debut. He has taken his time in crafting this record, having spun records as a DJ since the age of 15 in his native Denver, Colorado and working his way through art school in the long NYC tradition. The summation of this formative experience is manifest in an album that traverses surprisingly antipodean emotions. Whilst most people will point to the undeniable catchiness of ‘Blind’ as the album’s centrepiece, ‘Iris’ burrows its way under the skin with hypnotic marimba coming across like some tribal drum ceremony of mourning, drifting across the valley of a mist-shrouded rainforest. Like ‘This Is My Love’, it is the skilfully placed horns that pop up throughout the track that provide a comforting embrace – Butler’s proclivity for earnestly feathering the edges of a track in the type of genre that resorts, all too often, to melodrama and bombast is refreshing and genuinely engaging.

From its beginning to its end, in ‘True False/Fake Real’s intertwined harmonies, Hercules And Love Affair is not just another dance record. Some tracks may only get you gently swaying from side-to-side, while others could get the most hard-nosed indie intelligentsia up and sandwiched in the sweaty throng. And that’s exactly what makes this record so good. There’s a humanity behind the songs that is lacking in the work of so many of Butler’s contemporaries. He is centred on guiding the listener through a set of experiences that reveal pieces of his personality whilst still embracing a collaborative spirit where each member is allowed their moment/s to shine.