What is ‘Mutant Disco’? Exploring the lighter side of no wave
New York’s incredible no wave scene emerged from an underground resistance to the popular new wave movement. Inherently difficult to pin down, the no wave scene ranged from funk-driven rock and rollers to abrasive avant-garde composers. The scene is often overlooked within the discourse of New York’s musical history, but its sister scene of mutant disco tends to be even more obscured by the ravages of time.
Discussing mutant disco or no wave without first looking at ZE Records is virtually impossible. The label, set up by Michel Esteban and Michael Zilkha in 1978, brought the underground no wave scene into the public consciousness by releasing material from the likes of Lizzy Mercier Descloux and James Chance. ‘Mutant disco’ was a term coined by the iconic label, who used the phrase as a title for their 1981 compilation album Mutant Disco: A Subtle Discolation of the Norm.
Spearheaded by ZE’s in-house producer August Darnell, who appeared on the album under his better-known moniker Kid Creole and compiled by Rob Partridge and Trevor Wyatt, the compilation album burst New York’s dark underbelly into the light. Receiving a lot of attention in Europe, where Kid Creole was a certified pop star, Mutant Disco provides a glimpse into the vibrancy of New York’s underground artistic movement.
The term speaks to the intense non-conformity of ZE and the no wave movement. The disco scene, which had emerged in the 1970s, was viewed as one of the main antagonists of the punk rock movement, with the sweat-stained walls of CBGB acting as direct opposition to the glitz and glamour of Studio 54. By the end of the decade, it was widely accepted that disco was definitely not cool. However, many no wave musicians embraced the innate funk and danceability of disco without adopting the complacency of its spirit.
While the compilation album is not an exhaustive list of tracks that made up the scene, only featuring six total songs, it does provide a fitting introduction to the weird and wonderful world of mutant disco. Essentially, mutant disco music is the combination of disco and funk rhythms with the experimental and avant-garde mentality of the wider no wave scene. Certain artists that adopted the mutant disco way of operation even embraced more obvious influences of jazz and, in some cases, dub reggae.
A spiritual precursor to the house music and drum and bass rave scenes of the late 1980s and early 1990s, mutant disco is, in its essence, dance music. In opposition to the simplistic, repetitive beat of house music, however, mutant disco is much more complex and free-forming in structure. Owing to its often complex jazz and avant-garde-inspired rhythms, the style is often described as ‘difficult dance music’; a fair enough summary, though it does not make the beats of mutant disco any less infectious.
Featuring the Latin jazz overtones of Kid Creole, the rhumba stylings of Don Armando, the soul of Material, and the out-and-out disco of Gichi Dan, ZE’s Mutant Disco compilation is as danceable as it is eclectic. In that sense, it is difficult to truly define mutant disco as a genre, and, in many ways, that is the entire point.
While later versions of the compilation on the internet and streaming services have expanded to include more popular no wave artists such as The Contortions, the original six-track collection of 12-inch singles still holds up as a stunning collection of some of the most original and funk-ridden music ever produced by the New York underground scene.
