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Live Review: Nancy Whang & Bonar Bradberry 'Working the Midnight Shift' (Disco Version)

12 May 2014 | 4:51 pm | Gavin Butler

Put LCD Soundsystem alumni Nancy Whang in a room with PBR Streetgang's Bonar Bradberry. Throw them a classic by disco diva Donna Summer. Reap the rewards.

Put LCD SOUNDSYSTEM alumni and "Loleatta Holloway figure for the DFA era" NANCY WHANG in a room with PBR STREETGANG's BONAR BRADBERRY. Throw them a classic by 70's disco diva and one of history's best-selling artists DONNA SUMMER. Close the door. Leave to stand. Reap the rewards.

Those rewards come in the form of WHANG and BRADBERRY's 'Working the Midnight Shift' cover—and it sounds pretty much like what you'd expect. The late SUMMER left an immense musical legacy, and has been covered and sampled by countless acolytes: from BLONDIE to WHITNEY HOUSTON to MADONNA to MOBY. 'Working the Midnight Shift' is one of her darker tracks: a 'sucker to the man' kind of lamentation that yearns for disco frivolity; craving those things "out of... reach"; to be "out having fun", and yet all the while "dying inside".

This cover delivers on the disco vibes, bringing a neon aesthetic without ever fully lighting up the darkness. The track opens slowly on the back of some stripped down percussion and spacey synths, trundling on eerily for more than a minute-and-a-half before WHANG steps into the fray. Between her morose tone and her falsetto choruses, she well and truly proves her aptitude at replicating one of the best—and BRADBERRY keeps things rolling for the full six minutes with his fierce bass, snare and synth production.

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This song sounds like it could've come straight from the soundtrack to 'Drive': that kind of 70's/80's sound at once innocent and strangely sinister, invoking images of lone cars speeding down dark, fluorescent motorways. Midnight cities that never sleep. And poor old WHANG, in the spirit of SUMMER, "working that midnight shift for that extra little something".

Words by Gavin Butler

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