SPILLER – “Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)”

Spiller’s turned respectable heads, and people sharper than you or I are saying Single Of The Year to this easy-sliding disco confection. Let’s hope not – oh, it’s very good, it takes that Stardust/Moloko formula and turns it into something no less cynical but a lot less strained and glassy. And it makes you dance better than either, too.

If it feels so good, why ain’t this love? Because….I don’t know, because it’s disco maybe. And I’m not saying that because disco sucks, I’m saying that because disco rocks, because there are records in perpetual circulation which do disco with more cold swagger and passion than Groovejet can. Hailing Groovejet as a classic feels a little like giving in, like calling Belle And Sebastian’s “Legal Man” a classic, or a CD by that slick-chopped funk band who played in your local last Sunday. I want joy from a single, which Spiller provides most adequately, but I want surprise too. Maybe that’s shallow, or theoretically somehow unsound, but the old stuff isn’t and mustn’t be as good as the new stuff, or what’s the point? Single of a year, maybe. But not this one.