Disco may not be completely dead, but Kish Kash, by Basement Jaxx, could well bury it forever.
The album, which according to its liner notes is geared toward "soul punx," utilizes disco undertones with eclectic accompaniment. The song "Lucky Star" plays with a rap overlay, and "Supersonic" emphasizes vocals somewhere between blues and gospel, while "Hot 'n Cold" has lyrics more traditional to disco.
Aside from their disco foundations, the songs on Kish Kash do share one more similarity - weak lyrics. Most of the songs depend heavily on the repetition of only a few phrases, sometimes even a single line. The last two tracks, "Living Room" and "Feels Like Home," are notable exceptions.
The album's title track is disconcertingly similar to the song "Whip It." It is the kind of piece where you get one annoying phrase stuck in your head for days on end, but don't care nearly enough to learn the rest of the words. In short, the song so closely resembles a commercial jingle, making it truly nauseating.
Kish Kash includes three interludes, the shortest of which is only nine seconds long. "Petrilude" consists solely of a synthesized voice saying the following words: "I am everything; I am nothing, in the Petri dish of the Creator." The other two interludes,"Cosmolude" and "Benjilude," combine random noise with an incoherent voice. The interludes beg the listener to question whether any noise can be considered music. In this case, no, it cannot.
The majority of the music lacks rhythmic variation and, with the exception of the interludes, the songs are too long to have such a stagnant beat.
"Living Room" and "Feels Like Home" break with the disco reverberations of the first 12 tracks. The music is more experimental in its own right, not merely a merging of two established types. The rest of the album will likely prevent most listeners from ever reaching these prototypical works.
The transcendence of genres in Kish Kash is a novel idea, though perhaps not a very practical one.
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