For years Black Devil’s 1978 Disco Club album was a three-figure Holy Grail item for devotees of European electronic disco. Last year it was mercifully reissued by the ever-impressive Lo Recordings, who follow through by delving back three years earlier to the even-rarer first solo excursions by Black Devil mainstay Bernard Fevre. Ostensibly a producer of French library music, Fevre released The Strange New World Of… in 1975 on France’s legendary L’Illustration Musicale imprint, which released 26 albums in the 60s and 70s. Rather confusingly, Lo’s release features familiar titles from the original plus previously-unheard material which Fevre, now in his 60s, is refusing to put a date on. Having not heard the original, it’s impossible to say when in the last 34 years this music was recorded or what’s been changed. Such is the timeless nature of the electronic soundscapes here it really doesn’t matter. Whereas Black Devil dealt in tribal space-disco, Bernard’s music swaps 4/4 beats for Moroderesque pulses, jazzy flourishes, ejaculating robo-gophers and ethereal melodies, ‘new’ tracks like ‘Misererum’ ploughing a dark, druggy furrow and ‘Dangerous Mixture’ whipping up a kind of haunted electro mutant amidst cinematic outings like ‘Molecule Dance’. Certainly a strange world but pretty wonderful.
5 Out Of 5
Reviewed By: Kris Needs