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Initially a disco-era obscurity,
Black Devil Disco Club resumed activity several decades after the release of their cult-classic debut. French library musician
Bernard Fevre released
Disco Club, a six-track album of spooky electro-disco credited to the band name
Black Devil, in 1978. The little-known record gradually gained a following, especially as interest in vintage disco resurged during the 2000s. Rephlex reissued the material in 2004, and
Fevre began actively recording and performing as
Black Devil Disco Club, starting with 2006's
28 After. He continued delivering variations on his signature sound over the next decade and a half, venturing into a more pop-influenced direction with 2011's guest-heavy Circus and wrapping up the project with 2020's playful, ebullient
Lucifer Is a Flower.
Bernard Fevre was a member of French pop band Les Francs Garçons in the late 1960s and early '70s. In 1975, he began releasing albums of spacy electronic instrumentals under his own name. Adopting the pseudonym Junior Claristidge,
Fevre recorded
Black Devil's
Disco Club, an album of futuristic disco filled with cosmic synths, shuffling drums, tape loops, and echo-drenched, nonsensical vocals. Composer and organist
Jacky Giordano, incognito as Joachim Sherylee, was credited as the other member of the group, but
Fevre later commented that
Giordano only provided financial backing for the project, essentially acting as executive producer. Released by RCA in France as well as Italian label Out,
Disco Club made little impact at the time, but disco connoisseurs gradually picked up on its otherworldly charms, particularly around the early 2000s.
Aphex Twin's Rephlex label eventually re-released the tracks in 2004, but instead of a straightforward reissue, they parceled the material over the course of three 12"s and one CD single, with a remix by
Luke Vibert's disco-inspired
Kerrier District alias appearing on two of the releases. The music's futuristic sound, combined with its quixotic release scheme, caused many listeners and journalists to erroneously believe that the whole project was a scam propagated by Rephlex.
Fevre returned to making music as
Black Devil Disco Club in 2006, releasing
28 After on Lo Recordings. Following the format of the 1978 debut, the album contained six tracks of ominous yet playful synth-disco with nearly indecipherable, sometimes scat-like vocals. Apart from the upgraded recording quality, the release could have passed for outtakes from the original
Disco Club sessions.
Black Devil in Dub followed in 2007, featuring dub versions of
28 After tracks as well as remixes by neo-disco artists like
Prins Thomas and
Quiet Village.
Eight Oh Eight, a slightly more ecstatic variation on the
Black Devil formula, appeared in 2008. The Strange New World of Bernard Fevre, a collection of beat-heavy reworks of a
Fevre library release from 1975, was released as a
Black Devil Disco Club full-length in 2009. An album of dub versions of
Eight Oh Eight's tracks, simply titled DUB, was digitally issued in 2010.
For 2011's Circus, an album of three-minute pop songs rather than six-minute space-disco cuts,
Fevre recruited several guest vocalists, including
Nancy Sinatra,
Afrika Bambaataa, and
Jon Spencer. Remixes and dubs followed on 2012's Magnetic Circus, and the
Fevre-sung studio album Black Moon White Sun appeared in 2013.
Disco Club was finally given a full reissue in 2015, and a dozen remixes of the track "'H' Friend" were released digitally. In 2020,
Fevre released the whimsical
Lucifer Is a Flower, announcing it as
Black Devil Disco Club's final release. ~ Paul Simpson & Andy Kellman