Peter Gordon – Love Of Life Orchestra review

The DFA love for the work of Peter Gordon was first made public when James Murphy and Pat Mahoney chose to open and close their Fabric:Live mix with the deliciousness of “Beginning of the Heartbreak” and “Don’t Don’t”. That love is expanded on fully with this brilliant retrospective of the avant garde musician’s career as a producer and figurehead of the Love of Life Orchestra. The aforementioned two tracks open this album and still amaze with the sheer magnitude of production values, though the swift changeup between tracks will always annoy!

From here, your senses are treated to a dizzying array of vintage disco sounds from the era’s prime. Especially delightful are “Still You” and “Beautiful Dreamer”, the tracks Gordon produced with visual artist Collette as Justine & The Victorian Punks. Ethereal and multi layered discoid arrangements and impossibly sweet vocal melodies combine to hypnotic effect on both tracks. Elsewhere “Iago’s Escape” contains the sort of abstract arrangements you’d expect from a producer who worked with Arthur Russell whilst “Extended Niceties” contains a joyous exchange between sax and synths. This is one of those albums you sink right in to and come out the other side with a nagging sensation to find out more.

Tony Poland