Bernard Fevre - Black Devil Disco Club Presents The Strange New World Of Bernard Fevre

Black Devil mastermind’s rare early electronic foragings

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, 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 and much-sought 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, however, that 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 and ethereal melodies. “New” tracks such as Misererum plough a dark, druggy furrow, while Dangerous Mixture whips up a kind of haunted electro mutant amid cinematic outings the likes of Molecule Dance. Certainly a strange world, but pretty wonderful.

Lo | LCD78

Reviewed by Kris Needs
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