Milan-based electronic funk / soul / pop four-piece The Love Supreme draw their primary inspiration from a broad range of retro influences that spans classic krautrock, disco and Italo house, right through to the likes of Dario Argento and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and they’ve laid the way for this debut album with three preceding, well-received 12”s on Tirk. While a fair chunk of ‘New Millenium Freaks’ sees The Love Supreme angling for radio-friendly synth-pop atmospheres not completely dissimilar to say Datarock or Hot Chip, in many senses it’s when the quartet veer out into deeper, more experimental waters that things really start to get interesting here. After ‘Elsewhere Once More’ provides a suitably cosmic intro note with its fusion of slo-motion Moroder-esque synth bass arpeggios and noodling proggy analogue synths leading into a Timothy Leary sample, ‘Gold Dust’ easily provides one of the most obvious radio-poised singles here, with the addition of live drums lending the synth-pop / disco grooves an urgency that also calls to mind the Gomma label’s European punk-funk / cosmic disco aesthetic (think Munk or Whomadewho).
While the likes of ‘Sugar’ and ‘Waiting For The Love’ see the quartet sticking to the same catchy vocal synth-pop / house vibe, ‘Boy’ sees proceedings taking an unexpected turn that’s easily one of the biggest highlights here as chaotic rave synths collide with live funk-bass grooves and rattling conga percussion, before ‘Rocquet’ and ‘Tiefferre’ see things wandering out into shimmering motorik electronics that claim a more direct descendence from the effortless krautrock glide of Neu! and Cluster. There’s also a punk-funk centred cover of Bauhaus’ ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ that despite sounding unspeakable in theory, actually offers up one of the most enjoyable tracks here. In the end, you’re left with collection that feels curiously divided between radio-friendly pop and deeper instrumental offerings. Despite this occasionally uneasy balance, fans of the likes of the Gomma label should find much to admire here.
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