Mighty Mouse - Song With No Word (History/Disco Circus)

Song With No Word is a bland, tasteless mulch that is less than the sum of its parts. Spaced-out prog disco, jazz-rock synths and funky bass burbles all have their place. But combined like this they become interminable funky muzak, from a nightclub netherland that taste forgot.

These tunes may aim to combine sophisticated funk with a cheeky cut-and-paste postmodernism. However, the results are leaden muso workouts suitable for the Miami Vice soundtrack, a funky test card or a second-tier console game. Whenever a decent bassline or interesting melody appears, it is ruined in seconds by a squealing guitar or synth solo so tasteless that Rick Wakeman would be proud of it.

Whether it refers to cooking or music, fusion tends to signify a watering down of its constituent elements into a soulless mess both bland and tasteless. This applies here in spades. Imagine a group of singleted, bemulleted session musicians playing constipated jazz-funk to an empty midweek dancefloor. Disco is dead, and the glorious communal rush of acid house is years away.

This is the joyless sound of a groove that has become a rut, a subgenre that has reached the end of the road, mystifyingly pastiched for what feels like a very long time indeed. Long before the end of the album, all the tracks have merged into one.

This Mouse certainly loves its cheese… but it’s fallen into a trap.