New York band
the Dance was active from late 1979 to sometime in 1983, rising out of Manhattan's downtown art punk scene with a sound that fused elements of funk, no wave, global rhythms, and danceable if dissonant high-energy rock. While they didn't reach the same levels of acclaim as
the Talking Heads,
the Slits, or even more immediate peers like
DNA or
the Bush Tetras,
the Dance created a hybrid of high-tension sounds on the same level as all of those bands that was evident from their first self-produced, self-released 12" EP, 1980's
Dance for Your Dinner. Compilation release
Do Dada collects that EP as well as alternate mixes of songs from later records, non-album tracks, and other unreleased material. The frenetic energy of the band's first four songs is almost uncontainable, from the eerie falsetto vocals and slippery bass line of "She Likes to Beat" to the caustic funk push, unexpected violin/percussion breakdown, and constant unhinged vocalizations of "Do Dada," a song emblematic of the anything-goes stylistic approach of the N.Y.C. scene
the Dance were part of in the early '80s. There's an extended mix of the slick, slightly gothic groove "In Lust" (taken from the band's 1981 debut LP of the same name) as well as the dubby swells of non-album B-side "Dubbin' Down" and two versions of the previously unreleased "Into the Future," an emphatic and chaotic original mix and a sample-heavy mix by
Arthur Baker that sounds almost unrecognizable from the first. The material on
Do Dada draws from every phase of their brief lifespan and offers a great idea of how their sound changed and held on to its core elements as they burned quickly and ferociously. ~ Fred Thomas
