Album Review: ESCORT – ‘ESCORT’

Well, here I am again extolling the virtues of disco on these pages. Are you bored yet, because I’m certainly not. Perhaps in a post-Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories world, it’s time to reassess our approach to this genre. One of the key things about disco, and RAM as well, is live instrumentation, reinforcing an idea that in a digital age, the soul of music (even for prolific dance producers) comes from real instruments rather than machines. I could bang on about this for many, many more paragraphs, but then I’d run out of space to talk about the brilliant ESCORT. A 17-piece disco band from NYC, their fresh, summery and live sound rather neatly illustrates my point.

Blending unashamed goodtimes with the healthy dollop of attitude that you’d expect from disco, Escort have been around for about seven years in one form or another, with all the performers creating tracks separately and then having them layered by producers Eugene Cho and Dan Balis. Since these initial sessions, Escort have toured the world as a live act – with this record forming a sort of Greatest Hits so far function. As such it’s awesome, and has had me shoulder-shuffling behind my keyboard for weeks.

Escort is available now via Tirk Records

– SL