Today's Song of the Day, as chosen by Kevin Cole, co-host of Drive Time on KEXP, is "Discoteque" by Molchat Doma, from the 2020 album Monument on Sacred Bones.
Belarusian trio Molchat Doma (a phrase that translates to “Houses Are Silent”) formed in 2017, crafting darkwave synth-pop from their hometown of Minsk. Their just-released third full-length Monument was written and recorded in quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic, but with today's featured track "Discotheque", they invite the listener to imagine the now-forbidden dance floor. In a press release, they describe the song as “a light dance composition, which was created in order to make the listener move to the beat of the music. A kind of answer to 'Just Can’t Get Enough' by Depeche Mode…Ideal for both mood elevation and unbridled fun.”
The accompanying music video, directed by Alexey Terehoff, was filmed at the Memorial Museum-Studio of Z. Azgur, and while the clip finds the band performing to statues of Lenin and Stalin, Terehoff aimed to focus on the aesthetic. “This is the city that embalmed and revived all the idols from the era of the Soviet dictatorship,” he declared. “There are no politics in the video, only the STYLE, a mixture of pure, concentrated neo-totalitarian aesthetics and acidic post-punk.”
