❉ A Thong For Europe: the second single from The Bowling Green’s ‘lost’ third album.
Following August’s digital single Wonky, Disco Thong is the second single from the ‘lost’ third album by the eclectic, eccentric, electric Micko Westmoreland of Micko & The Mellotronics working under his former moniker of The Bowling Green. The digital single will be available from 2nd November 2022, leading to the album ’Self-Titled’ which is released on 25th November through Landline records/Republic of Music on all good digital platforms!
‘TBG’ released electronic music around the millennium when signed to Trent Reznor’s nothing records (interscope). This final batch signifies a final chapter, the most significant release since 2002; a couple of the tracks made their way on to a small charity label stateside under a different name way back but this is the first time they have been presented digitally.
Disco Thong works lap steel, disco stabs and art of noise tape saturated synth pads giving the track a Post-Punk/New Pop, ’79-’84 feel with millennium style Atari programming. Driving organic bass provided by Arnulf Lindner under charismatic explosive retro sound effects, haunting Moogs rise to clipped guitars.
Micko Westmoreland on ‘Disco Thong’ and ‘Self-Titled’
“I’d worked on a number of tracks after the second album but moved on to film scores and documentaries with my film maker brother Wash Westmoreland (Still Alice/Colette). So these tracks were left unfinished. I decided to move away from electronica and drop the name ‘Bowling Green’. After seeing some great visuals by Cameron Poole for David Devant and his Spirit Wife I approached him about filming in a ‘pod’ that I’d been inspired by at design exhibition in Granary Square.
“We germinated the idea together, using the iPad as green screen this gave us access to all the old Bowling Green visuals which I’d transferred from VHS. As all the old footage was pretty low res we decided on a glitch 2001 feel for the whole vid. A concept of genetic splicer emerged, past, future and present, as the present-day pod occupant views a ‘Cameo meets the Velvets’ rocker dude from the future and a spartan white Neo-glam kid from Bowling Green past’.”
Disco Thong is the second single taken from the November release of the 7-track digital album named Self-Titled. On the album name Westmoreland says, “The project is very meta, self-referential, as it’s about airing work largely from another time. The name seemed to fit as describing that process and the video likewise.”
The album is littered with dynamic beats, heavy sound effects and driving bass. A performance from the late “Tubby T’ on Live Wild West, makes a hybrid of Jamacian dance hall raga meets left field quirk. Hey Baby speaks of funk street hustle with tinsel disco trimmings. Whilst 3-D hassle works a darker thread of disorientation, paranoia and a tireless lack of resolution. Wonky has a toy town simplicity with accompanying video to match . We finish with Mastermind where an analogue synth seems to respond to the questions posed by the original host Magnus Magnusson on specialist subject of the ‘Sex Pistols and Punk Rock’. So lots to like here in this action-packed final instalment of Bowling Green studio work.
❉ ‘Disco Thong’ is released by The Bowling Green 2 November 2022 through Landline records/Republic of Music on all good digital platforms. Pre-save here: https://lnk.to/TBG-
❉ News source: The Bowling Green/Republic of Music.
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