Disco Doom

Disco Doom hail from Zurich, Switzerland, where the group constructs tracks steeped in the warped tunefulness, jagged guitar lines, and structural defiance that defined 1990s indie rock acts such as Sonic Youth, 18th Dye, and Pavement. Early releases such as 2003’s Binary Stars injected that template with taut, buoyant drive and a playful exploratory spirit, while 2008’s Dream Electric draped it in melodic gloss and electronic textures; subsequent efforts saw the duo continually revise the approach with laboratory-like intensity. By 2022’s Mt. Surreal the results stood as unpredictably captivating and sonically striking as anything produced by their cited forebears.

The project originated in 1996 around the partnership of guitarist/vocalist Gabriele De Mario and guitarist/bassist Anita Rufer. Following years of live work and refinement, the pair issued RRKR (2002) and Binary Stars (2003), which established the experimental, guitar-centric foundation of the band’s identity. Their 2008 breakthrough Dream Electric reduced earlier abrasiveness in favor of greater tunefulness and electronics. After supporting Built to Spill across the United States, the duo traveled to Seattle, Washington to track with Built to Spill’s Jim Roth serving as producer and Jason Albertini handling drums; the sessions yielded 2011’s Trux Reverb, which reinstated a bolder experimental edge through Scott Plouf’s drumming. A subsequent move to N.Y.C. preceded a 2013 European tour alongside Built to Spill and the completion of another album. Issued in 2014 on the longtime label Exploding in Sound, Numerals spotlighted bassist Flo Götte alongside Scott Plouf’s drumming and further probed the guitar abrasion, Motorik pulses, and fragmented structures already present in prior work.

De Mario and Rufer simultaneously operated as J&L Defer, an outlet for more loosely organized post-rock explorations that surfaced with the 2016 release No Map on Exploding in Sound. Extensive touring occupied both projects in the years that followed, yet Disco Doom remained silent on record until a 2020 split single shared with Brazilian psychedelic outfit Oruã. Album sessions had actually commenced in 2018, initially involving live drummer Mario Kummer and bassist Mathias Vetter, though the finished 2022 effort Mt. Surreal ultimately rested chiefly with De Mario and Rufer, augmented only sparingly by Kummer, Vetter, former bassist Götte, and former drummer Domi Chansorn. The resulting set carries an intimate, enclosed atmosphere that registers as a disassembled and reassembled iteration of the group’s established sonic language and appeared once more via Exploding in Sound.