When Blind first broke cover in the New Year it was hailed as an instant dance classic, a slice of '70s disco spruced up by the DFA for 21st century ears. Antony Hegarty (of Antony And The Johnsons fame) uses his powerful and unique voice to scintillating effect, soaring over a collection of funky sounds that are surely off mini-key Yamaha and Casio keyboards.
DJ Andrew Butler, whose project Hercules And Love Affair is, has an eye to a hedonistic time when disco ruled the airwaves. But instead of creating some post-ironic pastiche of Boney M, he's raised the genre up and spotlighted it as art. In so doing he has extracted Antony's best big diva vocals and made him sound far funkier than on his Mercury-winning album I Am A Bird Now. You can even imagine him dancing a bit here.
The main version of Blind forms the core of the eponymous debut album, which follows a week later, but this single is worth picking up for the gloriously retro Frankie Knuckles remix that replaces the toy keyboards with jazz chord strings and piano to create a clean sound that's the polar opposite of DFA yet every bit as special.
