The Disco Biscuits
Location: Philadelphia, PA
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Bio: The Disco Biscuits are an entirely different band today than they were when they first formed on the University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia back ... (more)
in 1995. That’s not to say that they’ve abandoned their foundation, switched gears or set sail for distant shores. The Disco Biscuits are still very much the pioneers of “trance-fusion,” bridging the gap between electronic music and jam bands. They still remain rock pioneers whose soul belongs as much to marathon dance parties as it does to live improvisational journeys. They still employ emerging technologies to help them create music that is 100 percent human although, perhaps, not entirely of this earth. But after spending the past three years in the studio — during breaks in touring — they’ve resurfaced with ‘Planet Anthem,’ a CD that is undeniably unlike anything else they’ve ever created before.
“Our only goal was to make a great album,” says keyboardist Aron Magner. “That was the only concept from the very beginning.” But ‘Planet Anthem’ is more than a great album — it’s about to become a reference point for a whole set of new weapons in the Disco Biscuits’ arsenal.
“It’s all about making sure that you have the material that you feel confident is, without a doubt, going to make a difference in your career,” bassist Marc Brownstein explains. “We want to have this album be a game changer for us.”
For more than a decade now, Biscuits fans have followed the band from show to show, religiously if not obsessively, because they know that every performance is a once-in-a-lifetime event. The band tirelessly explores every possibility with their songs by performing them in entirely different ways every single time. They’ve even been known to “invert” various composed sections, turning a tune on its head to see what might fall out of its pockets. This is what they’re famous for. So when the Biscuits sat down to work on a new album, they decided to do the same thing to the creative process itself. They turned their own process and previous recording experiences upside down and inside out in search of a new adventure.
Previously, each member would bring their own songs to the table; this time everything was collaborative. As Brownstein explains, “We sat down with the members of the band and some outside people and worked on music sort of by committee.”
The band invited multiple producers, songwriters and musicians to join the “committee” by working on isolated ideas (be it a beat, a break, a bridge, a chorus or even just a sound) and assembling them into focused songs. In contrast to some of the band’s beloved patchwork compositions, this time, every part had to be a perfect fit and every song had to sound like a singularity despite the many hands who got it there.
“We have this huge studio space in Philadelphia and we found out that there are a lot of local musicians that needed a place to congregate, that needed a place to work,” says guitarist Jon Gutwillig. “And we sort of adopted an open door policy towards these musicians.” As a result of that policy, not only are these tracks their most collaborative yet, the band members all maintain that they are some of the best songs in their entire canon.
In the past, the Disco Biscuits would try to convert their most recent live songs into studio versions, but with ‘Planet Anthem’ the band is eagerly attempting to do the opposite — taking these studio compositions and making them a seamless part of their live repertoire. It’s a challenge that will no doubt shape the new face of Disco Biscuits jams. For example, the song ‘Loose Change’ uses the sound effect of a coin being flipped in the air, landing on a table, spinning around and falling down. “That particular sound is a very imperative part of a break in the song,” says Magner. “So we decided that I’d take that sample and trigger it. I have it assigned to my C Sharp key. It’s an important part of the song and it has to be there, so we are incorporating the technology we have available to us in order to do stuff like that.”
Brownstein puts it more directly: “People might hear ‘Loose Change’ and be a little freaked out that it’s a pop song, but we’re going to take that song and we’re going to jam the shit out of it.”
In other words, meet the new Biscuits, same as the old Biscuits. This is the same band that hosts Camp Bisco every summer, a three-day festival which they anchor and which literally brings the “trance fusion” style to life with back-to-back sets by some of the world’s top electronic acts, jam bands, MCs and DJs. Some of the talent Camp Bisco has hosted in its eight incarnations includes Infected Mushroom, Nas, Sound Tribe Sector Nine (STS9), Bassnectar, Snoop Dogg, Umphrey’s McGee, Dr. Dog, the Orb, MSTRKRFT, and various projects from Simon Posford’s Twisted Records.
Posford’s presence at Camp Bisco is particularly noteworthy as the Disco Biscuits have long been vocal and unabashed fans of his work in projects such as Shpongle, Hallucinogen and Younger Brother. Several of Posford’s Twisted Records cohorts — Ott and Benji Vaughn — also joined the effort.
On some levels, now that ‘Planet Anthem’ is finally complete, the Disco Biscuits can return to their primary function as one of America’s most in-demand live jam bands. They will continue to headline prestigious venues like Red Rocks, anchor stages at world-renown festivals like Japan’s Fiji Rock, and embark on tours during all four seasons. But Brownstein was right — ‘Planet Anthem’ is going to be a game changer. It’s a game where everybody wins, but with the Disco Biscuits firmly in the lead.
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