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After making hip-hop with
Automato, New York City natives
Alex Frankel and
Nick Millhiser turned to electronic post-disco and synth pop sounds with
Holy Ghost!, supported by the DFA label. From 2007 through 2016, the multi-instrumentalist duo released seven singles and two full-lengths for DFA, namely the part-compilation
Holy Ghost! (2007) and
Dynamics (2013), and never shied away from making their early-'80s club inspirations known, whether conveyed through an homage to
New Order's video for "Confusion" or a cover of
Ministry's "I Wanted to Tell Her." Since their lengthy period with DFA,
Frankel and
Millhiser have helped reactivate the classic N.Y.C. disco label West End Records with their third album,
Work (2019).
Friends since attending elementary school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan,
Alex Frankel and
Nick Millhiser were members of
Automato, a rap group whose last releases, including a self-titled album released in 2003, were produced by
the DFA's James Murphy and
Tim Goldsworthy. After
Automato dissolved, Murphy and
Goldsworthy encouraged
Frankel and
Millhiser to continue pushing toward dance music. Push they did. Multi-instrumentalists
Frankel and
Millhiser co-produced the warm and melodic "Hold On" with Murphy and
Goldsworthy -- settling on the
Bar-Kays-referencing alias
Holy Ghost! just before the pressing of the 12" -- and issued it on the DFA label in 2007. Second single "I Will Come Back," a joint release from DFA and Mountain Dew's Green Label Sound, didn’t come out until 2009 but made an impact with its video, a remake of the clip for
New Order's "Confusion," a snapshot of New York's club scene (with producer
Arthur Baker reprising his role from the original). The four-track
Static on the Wire EP followed in 2010 and continued to display the duo's uncanny ability to evoke the colorful, layered sound of early- to mid-'80s club music. A self-titled album in 2011 included some of their previously released songs, as well as a guest appearance from
Michael McDonald on the closing "Some Children."
By then,
Holy Ghost! had also become one of the more prolific remix teams. They had reworked -- in some cases technically covered -- tracks by
MGMT,
Moby,
Cut Copy,
Phoenix,
the Juan MacLean, and James Murphy's
LCD Soundsystem. Additionally, for Green Label Sound, they updated
Ministry's "I Wanted to Tell Her" with vocals from fellow DFA figures
Nancy Whang and
Juan Maclean.
Whang and
Kelley Polar were among several contributors to
Holy Ghost!'s comparatively band-like second album,
Dynamics, released on DFA in 2013. Apart from the 2016 EP Crime Cutz,
Frankel and
Millhiser kept
Holy Ghost! on ice for a few years, and resumed on the reactivated legendary disco label West End with Anxious, a four-track EP featuring the title track, a mix by disco innovator
Tom Moulton, and
Frankel and
Millhiser's own remix of "Spirit of Sunshine," the Chuck Davis Orchestra's 1977 West End A-side. The EP was released in 2018, just ahead of the documentary Chef Flynn, for which the duo provided the score.
Work, their third LP, arrived on West End the next year. ~ Andy Kellman