HEALTH break down every track on collabs LP w/ NIN, Lamb of God, Poppy & more

“The song with Nolife (“HARD TO BE GOD”) was a one-off single back in 2017, and we had a few more collaborations that weren’t related,” John reminisced. “However, it seemed both our audiences and the artists we were collaborating with’s audiences were receiving these singles well. Once Covid hit, we decided we didn’t want to work on a new record if we couldn’t be in the same room, so why not hit up other people remotely and send over ideas?” This ultimately led to the creation of DISCO4, with which they rebranded DISCO from a remix series to a collaboration series, further breaking musical genre borders in the process.

The first part of the DISCO4 record was released in October 2020, featuring singles that had been out for years like “MASS GRAVE” with dreampop icon Soccer Mommy, and newer tracks like “FULL OF HEALTH” featuring modern grindcore legends Full of Hell. There's a track with experimental rock legends Xiu Xiu and one with the infamous deconstructed duo 100 gecs. This is all to say that HEALTH jump from genre to genre on these tracks, but remain consistently themselves as their featured artists remain so themselves, which is their objective in these collaborations. “We didn’t want anyone thinking we were just genre tourists or anything of the like,” John exclaimed. “We wanted to find a good middle ground between the artist we’re working with’s style of music and our own and ultimately make good music in the process. We also don’t mind getting out of the way when making these songs and having the featured artist take the spotlight.”

With the pandemic ongoing, HEALTH continued to collaborate, ultimately making the second part of DISCO4. “When we finished with the first part of DISCO4, touring still wasn’t open yet,” John noted. “We didn’t want to make a fifth record without touring, so we made another part for DISCO4. We wanted it to come out at the end of last year, but there were some complications with what the artists we collaborated with were doing, and we realized releasing a record in December is never a great idea anyway. So why not just wait a few more months to make it perfect and allow people to digest it more properly?”

As such, they are now ready to broadcast the second part of the DISCO4 saga to the world. Releasing digitally on April 8th (and available to pre-order on limited red vinyl), it's another 12 tracks with collaborations ranging from underground legends The Body to massive alt-rockers The Neighbourhood to metal giants Lamb of God to industrial giants Nine Inch Nails. There's also a single solo song to cap the project off. All signs point to this being yet another record that will further challenge genre norms, and bring forth a new generation of listeners who aren’t guided by something as claustrophobic as music genres tend to be. Given the reception and the number of artists who continue to hit them up, HEALTH imagines this is how the DISCO series will continue. “We’re blown away by the number of people who’ve said yes to creating these collaborations with us,” John humbly spoke. “Even now, we have some artists hitting us up to do some collaborations with them, and why not? Unless there’s a shift in the music scene, it’s hard to see the DISCO projects going any other way.”

“Hopefully, it can just be released as one part, though,” he joked. “Having DISCO4 in two parts is a bit awkward.”

Track-by-Track Rundown of Working with Each Artist on DISCO4 :: PART II

Poppy on “DEAD FLOWERS”
We wanted to work with Poppy for a while. The first piece I sent her, she had a hard time singing on, so she sent us a demo she just recorded on her phone playing guitar and singing a verse. That would become the main guitar riff and verse of the track, and then we just added our input around it and asked what she thought. She added a bit more to the track, and then we finished it up.