Disco, DJ Koze and the Cros
Vince Aletti’s The Disco Files 1973-78 has just been published for the first time in the UK by DJhistory.com It’s an indispensable read, not just for Disco and dance addicts, but for anyone interested in music writing. Aletti was the first person to identify the trend that would, for a brief and heady period, take over the world in the late seventies. His September 1973 article for Rolling Stone, entitled Discotheque Rock ’73: Paaaaarty! spoke of a new underground where DJ’s were the stars, and the ‘hardcore dance crowd – blacks, Latins, gays’ would congregate in private lofts or one off events in hotel ballrooms. The new mix, lab-tested in David Mancuso’s legendary club the Loft, included classic mainstream Philly and Motown records from the period, the O’Jays’ Love Train and The Temptations’ Papa Was A Rolling Stone (check out the recent double CD of the Tempts’ late sixties/ early seventies reincarnation, Psychedelic Soul, esp the track Message from A Black Man) , weird Euro-records by Barabbas, as well as African breaks like Manu DiBango’s classic Soul Makossa and Cymande’s The Message. From late 1974 to the end of 1978, Aletti wrote what was pretty much a weekly column for Record World that charted the rise of what would soon be called Disco: from the social, racial and sexual underground to the top of the charts – albeit in a sanitised version, thanks to the Saturday Night Fever movie. Along the way there are fascinating diversions – the popularity of a b-side by the Glitter Band, Makes You Blind, the rise of Euro Disco, the recurrence of the Space theme (for more, see the playlist below) and of course the onset of Electronic Disco – the total futurism of Kraftwerk’s Trans Europe Express and Donna Summer’s I Feel Love, records that have not dated at all thirty years later. Quite apart from the musical content, Aletti’s columns are an object lesson in how to write regularly for a demanding readership: he is enthusiastic, engaged, informative, yet not afraid to pick up on a topic and run with it – like the sophistication of the music and its audience, or the impact of gay politics contained in records like Carl Bean’s I Was Born This Way.
Interview with Vince Aletti at DJHistory.com
DJhistory.com have also released an extremely entertaining double CD of totally instrumental French library disco from 1979, le disco: tele music remixed: with contemporary mixers upping the spaciness quotient, tracks like Funky Bass are futuristic, funky, sexy and psychedelic – what more do you need? Just let yourself go, you know it feels good. Some of the same impulse can be found on DJ Koze’s recent collection of remixes, reincarnations. Best-known for his multifarious releases on Kompakt – like the shifting, ambient, almost gamelan Zouzou on Kompakt Total 9 – this Hamburg native exercises his higly developed prankster side by announcing on the sleeve: ‘DJ Koze would like to announce that he is no longer DJ Koze. Since 01.01.2009 he is Swahimi (The Unenlightened)”. The fourteen tracks range from techno to cosmiche disco to ambient and back again: a highlight is the remix of Sascha Funke’s Mango Cookie, a deep house exploration that segues into a 1977 track by famed German actress / singer Hildegard Knef, Ich Liebe Euch. (Koze is playing Future Flash at London’s Cable Club on the 22nd of August 2009).
Another psychedelic mood piece, which sounded great during the recent hot spell, is David Crosby’s first solo album If I Could Only Remember My Name… (1971) – recorded with a cast including Grace Slick, Jerry Garcia, Graham Nash and Neil Young (more on the Decades box soon). Long-regarded as a superstar indulgence, this drifting, relaxed, melodic album is remarkable for the way that it deals with grief and absence: by the last three tracks, this notoriously flamboyant sixties/seventies figure has almost disappeared into receding layers of pure sound. For those who want more, there are out-takes from the sessions floating around, collected together as Everybody Here Can Be In The Band, which include a haunting song with Jerry Garcia on vocals, Loser. Let’s hope that the heat comes back.
Space Disco playlist 1977-81
- Magic Fly – Space
- Moon Boots – Orlando Riva Sound (ORS)
- Space Rock – The Rockets
- Cosmic Traveller – Sumeria (Alec Costandinos)
- (Do You Have) The Force – The Droids
- I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper – Sarah Brightman and Hot Gossip
- Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band – Meco
- Spacer – Sheila B. Devotion
- Tango In Space – Space
- Space Bass – Slick
- Stars (12″ version) – Sylvester
- Cosmic Cars (7″ version) – Cybotron
- Spacelab – Kraftwerk
- Cosmic Raindance (7″ version) – Cybotron