A piece for Arena's July 2007 issue on Cosmic/Italo Disco.
Given the confusingly longstanding influence of the 1980s on everything from music to fashion to global power relations, it was only time before Italo Disco was going to get a relook-in. And about time too; for anyone who found last week's Mercury Prize nominations less than inspiring there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Just as noises like handclaps and piano loops looked like they were resigned to the dustbin of history, a new generation of producers is starting to channel the spirit of a set of European producers who made their own versions of US disco in the early 80s.
Pioneers like Giorgio Moroder began making electronic versions of American funk and disco records, rumour has it, because of a dearth of musicians who were able to play Moroder’s galloping basslines, but the music exploded because of an economic crisis – unable to import the increasingly rare dance records, many ventured into the studio to fabricate the tracks on a shoestring budget, resulting in minimal mixes of drum-machine percussion and melodic keyboard hooks. This post-disco, pre-Acid House electronic dance music is widely known as Italo Disco, but its reach went far beyond its Mediterranean heartland, influencing legendary early house DJs like Larry Leven and Frankie Knuckles, as well as a slew of Mitteleuropean disco producers.
This blissed out cosmic disco arguably fathered the Acid House boom: a certain small post-party club called Amnesia in Ibiza played Italo Disco and House as the sun rose to whoever was still awake. In 1987 Paul Oakenfold and Danny Rampling got mashed there – then decided to invent modern clubbing. Italo Disco was largely written out of the history books, though. Until now, that is.
Blame that 'Over And Over" tune: it all kicked off with Hot Chip totally understandable but astounding rise to ubiquity last year. Hot on their heels are a slew of ball-achingly cool acts, all taking their cue from the soft, slow, serotonin-rushed disco of the mid 80s. Take Noze, Parisians who are releasing the most sunkissed, airbrushed grooves this side of 1986, Still Going, the latest signing to LCD Soundsystem's label DFA, or the works of labels like Italians Do It Better. No that this cosmic disco revival is only the stuff of vinyl beards: hugely popular parties like And Did We Mention Our Disco and Adventures Close To Home have been sending ripples through clubland for months, and new nights Horsemeat Disco and Cocadisco are leading us four by four back to the millanarian gooves of the mid eighties.
Unlike most dance music, it can sound just as good at home as in a barely industrial building. Like most dance music, however, it was almost exclusively distributed on vinyl, meaning that most original records are now either warping in the Balearic sun, covered in 25-year-old beer or changing hands for hundreds of pounds on eBay. You're far better off tracking down recent reissues or releases on CD:
Greg Wilson – Credit To The Edit
(Tirk)
This is a collection of Mancunian 80's soul boy legend Wilson's best re-edits. Taking his favourite US disco tracks into his grimy mitts, he'd chop and twist reel-to-reel tapes into shape with a razorblade and ruler. In other words, dude would literally cut the tape up until it sounded like he wanted it to. Christ. Though not strictly Italo Disco, its glittering yet organic texture (and Chaka Khan’s yelping) make it a great introduction to the genre.
www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:kjfixqqsld6e
Morgan Geist – Unclassics
(Environ)
Great collection of Italo Disco underground classics from 1978 to1985, full of requisite sleeker-than-sleek synths and churning beats. Compiled Morgan Geist of Metro Area. Fantastic it is too.
www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:39fwxqqsldhe
myspace.com/morgangeist
Confuzed Disco – Italian Records Retrospective
(Irma)
This is it – the best collection of the best tracks from the record label that gave the genre its name. If this doesn't make you want to don cut-off shorts and snort anonymous white powder as the sun rises over the White Isle in 1985, I doubt much will.
www.myspace.com/confuzeddisco
Lindstrom – It's A Feedelity Affair
(Feedelity)
Let's start the resurrection: it's onto the new guard. This Norwegian fella occasionally takes time out from chopping wood, hunting whales and stuff (p'raps) to release some of the most blessed, blissed out, slowed down disco on Planet Earth. Dignifies himself as one of the few musicians you can see at Fabric and listen to over the Sunday Papers.
www.myspace.com/feedelity
Studio – West Coast
(Information)
Glorious, elegant, daft, cowbell, slurred dance music, reinvented by a pair of Swedes. First pressing sold out. Second pressing sold out. Now it's on the third, finally, and it DESTROYS.
www.myspace.com/sstudio
No comments:
Post a Comment