Artist: Stop Disco Mafia
Album: You Don’t Wanna Know
Released: September 5th, 2006
Label: Proptronix

With an alluring mystery of what one might not want to know, Ronald Gonko reveals his first full length record as Stop Disco Mafia. He has already given us two titillating yet head scratching vinyl EPs but now has assembled a masterful narrative album. The music of Stop Disco Mafia can be mistaken for a soundtrack from a demented Russian cartoon: The musically mustached villain throwing the listener on the train tracks as a chugging and then, twisting at his waxed facial hair he smiles, whips back his cape and reveals he also plays the role of the hero. Triumphant melodic blasts of truncated funk and skittering percussion whisk our fair listener to safety. Each track contained on the album is an animated scene with parts and counterparts chasing each other through obstacle courses while lobbing exchanges of practical jokes and bouncing around senselessly.

Several tracks feature the powerful vocal chutzpah of Nora Below. She belts out dramatic hammed up verses with an absurdity that echoes Nina Hagen’s stage presence. Her confident bellowings squash any dainty dame singing sweetly, along with squashing your expectations entirely about vocal electronic music. Many other friends drop in to add their 2 cents with singing saws, synthesizers and trumpets creating a picture of a children’s game being played in a hardware store.

Ronald is the bassist for the mandolin orchestra Kapajkos which recently backed up femme fatales Cobra Killer on their latest cd, another surprising yet charming match. The album was released on Monika Enterprises recently to find critical acclaim. Ronald’s connection to the mandolin music can be heard in Stop Disco Mafia with the ebb and flow of tension and strong melodic movement.

Gonko’s scope of influences is vast and is respectively displayed in this eclectic album. Lines are blurred between classical fugues, drill ‘n’ bass, punk, techno, and melodic pop. Growing up he had the big eyeballs of The Residents going in his ear holes and was also immersed in the deutsche new wave and punk scenes in Germany. There are some parallels with electronic contemporaries such as Blectum from Blechdom or Mouse On Mars but this Berliner’s sonic slapstick mayhem is undeniably unique. From his vocal chant chops to his hot potato beats there are always details to discover on further listens. Never has electronic music embodied a mousetrap of Rube Goldberg’s design so perfectly.

PRAISE FOR “YOU DON’T WANNA KNOW”

“Berlin freak Ronald Gonko, also a member of Killer Cobra’s backing crew, makes sure that the broken electro-pop merry-go-round never gets fixed, but keeps on squiggling and squelching and wriggling and smoking.” - Drew Daniel, Matmos, XLR8R Guest Reviews

TRACKLISTING

01. Total Desaster
02. Bodies (feat. Nora Below)
03. Shithead
04. A Quarrel (feat. Nora Below)
05. Washhour
06. Dayfilter
07. The Day After
08. Mad Mind (feat. Nora Below)
09. Crimescene
10. Crunchbone
11. Eastern Parkway
12. Freakshow
13. Absent (feat. Nora Below)
14. Another Stoneage
15. Czyclopic (feat. Nora Below)
16. Missing Vegas

Press Contact: Matt Wright, (503) 679-7499