Disco Inferno (band)

Disco Inferno were an English band active in the late 1980s and the 1990s. Initially a trio of guitar, bass, and drums performing in an identifiable post-punk style, the band soon incorporated digital sampling drawing from various aural and musical sources, and atmospheric and hypnotic songwriting. While commercially unsuccessful during their existence, the band acquired a cult following, with critics regarding them as a key first wave post-rock act.

History

Disco Inferno formed in 1989 in Essex by teenagers Ian Crause (guitars and vocals), Paul Willmott (bass), Daniel Gish (keyboards) and Rob Whatley (drums), although Gish soon quit the band to join Bark Psychosis, leaving Disco Inferno as a trio. They were initially a strict post-punk band heavily influenced by bands such as Joy Division and Wire, releasing their first album Open Doors, Closed Windows in July 1991, alongside the "Entertainment" single, also from 1991, and 1992's Science EP, all of which were compiled onto the compilation album In Debt (1992).

Crause developed an increasing interest in the production styles of bands like My Bloody Valentine and the Young Gods, as well as the Bomb Squad's hip hop production and sampling for the music of Public Enemy. With the release of the Summer's Last Sound EP in 1992, the band's musical style changed towards sample-based electronic sounds. The band "hit upon a seemingly simple but ultimately world-opening idea" with the EP: to write their instruments through samplers, and unlike their contemporaries who sampled elements of music, film dialogue or other media, Disco Inferno "engaged with the whole world", using their set up to record sounds ranging from running water, the wind, whistling birds, boots, car crashes and angry voices. Crause had purchased a Roland S-750 sampler with his savings and started programming towards the band's sound for six months. In a 2011 interview, Wilmott recalled of the era:

"We had recorded the Science EP, got some slightly better press, but were still playing to the bar staff most nights in any venue that would let us play.