Marking it’s 40th anniversary today is the 12” single from Duet Emmo, Heart of Hearts (Or So It Seems). In a year of dance floor monster hits, this neglected gem deserves to have far more attention paid to it than has been given since its release. This was the kind of single that you only heard at the absolute hippest underground clubs and it was one that got my ass on the dance floor every time it came on.
Duet Emmo were a one off collaboration between Wire & Dome members, Bruce Gilbert & Graham Lewis, and Mute Records founder, Daniel Miller. The group name is an anagram of the names “Dome” and “Mute”. The trio recorded together a couple of times intermittently throughout 1981/1982, releasing a single and LP in 1983. The single, with the B-side being a dance mix version of Or So It Seems, became a predictive harbinger of future underground trends like atmospheric Drum & Bass and Minimal Techno. A close friend once remarked that it sounded like dance music from the future, and indeed it was!
When I first heard this track shortly after its release, it immediately became one of my favorite club cuts of the era. It was right up there with New Order’s Blue Monday and The The’s Perfect. Looking back on that year, it seems to have been a golden age for underground dance music, with classic after classic finding life on the underground dance floors of the day, often tucked away in dimly lit warehouse spaces in the small hours of countless mind-altered late, late nights.
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