Two strangers, on either sides of the world, start a conversation on a free folk mailing list about dance music and decide to make a disco record together. They fail.
After ping-ponging snail mail packages, digital files, recordings of Terry Riley-style saxophone solos, and other accoustic instruments, including a homemade stringed something called the “The Boot”, UK noiser Neil Campbell (Astral Social Club, Vibracathedral Orchestra, A Band) and San Francisco experimentalist and poet Robert Horton (The Appliances, ISM, Plateau Ensemble) had to reboot after a real Trojan Dropper virus did a Pac-Man on hours of work stored on Horton's computer.
This turned out to be a fortunate accident that these collaborating wizards used to their advantage. The result is a pleasing amalgam forged from what Horton calls their “alchemical blender”. Mere disco this is not. Instead, true to its namesake, recognizable sounds are injected with replicating mutant fractals of static, low drones and buggy pulses.
Performances of Trojandropper are unlikely IRL, which seems fitting for something not rooted in this world. The album is now available on Zum Records in a limited edition of 440.
Listen to an exclusive outtake, “Dunno Dunno Mix” by Neil Campbell and Robert Horton bleow.
