Disco Horror

Coachella is this weekend and it is finally starting to hit me.  I head down to LA tomorrow and then it’s off to the desert Thursday night.  I can’t tell you how excited I am because I’ve happened to hear the new LCD Soundsystem album and I am going to have a royal freak out when I hear “Dance Yrself Clean”, “I Can Change”, and “Pow Pow Pow” live.  I figured I’d share some tunes before I leave though.  There’s a “theme” to this post, see if you can follow.

Let’s start slow.  Claremont 56 has been releasing limited 10″s for the past half year and I’ve been lucky enough to snag a couple of them.  This one is my favorite, meant for the strung-out sunset drive with the top down along the desert highway to LA, the horizon glowing with the city’s lights as you crawl closer.

Bison – Way to L.A. (Day Version)

Then there’s this 12″ I was lucky enough to snag off this dude off craigslist, along with a crate of disco 12″s that I will be posting when I get less lazy.  War’s “Galaxy” is easily one of my favorite tracks of all time and this I must say is a close second.  I don’t think it’s well-known, but these dudes seriously funked.  An effortless groove meant for cruising the summer streets in the southern California sunshine.

War – L.A. Sunshine (Special DJ Version)

This last one is a rad edit by current L.A. resident and long time staple of the house scene, Cole Medina.  His rework of the Bee Gees “Love You Inside Out” showed up on Mark E’s podcast from a ways back and this is completely different.  Imagine a spaced out sample of Ronnie Hudson & The Street People’s “West Coast Poplock” with more than reverb than you find in a Tangoterje dub, aggressively propelled by shaker, cowbell and snare fitting of a Maurice Fulton remix, all tied together with Cole’s house sensibility.  Enjoy.

Cole Medina – Zappy

Be back in a week.

The Japanese have been making some very impressive headway in the field of balearic disco for a while now, and this year has been especially exciting in terms of new releases from established labels like Crue-L and the Mule/Endless Flight conglomerate. My interest was definitely piqued by the FANTASTIC mix that DJ KZA of Force of Nature recently did for Beats in Space, which features some of my current favorite disco edits alongside some excellent balearic selections.

The mix also introduced me to a couple of great newer tunes, including a gorgeous cover version of Linda Di Franco’s “TV Scene” by Tokyo ensemble Discossession (out now on the Crue-L Rouse sub-label). Vocals on the track are handled by the incredibly talented Rie Lambdoll, and Soft Rocks even provides a groovy remix with some added harmonizing from collaborator Kathy Diamond. All of mixes on the 12″ release are worth your time, but most awe-inspiring of them all is the ‘Celestial Forest’ mix on the B-side, which then softly fades into a sparkling Gottsching-style kraut breakdown called “Arianna Suite”. These two combined make a cosmic, sprawling burner of a track (quickly becoming my niche here at Discohorror)- another 15 minutes well-spent.

Discossession ft. Rie Lambdoll – TV Scene (Celestial Forest Mix) + Arianna Suite

Later in the mix we’re treated to the John Daly remix of Kaoru Inoue‘s latest single “Etc”, which is on some type of vaguely tribal, deep house tip. It works well within the mix but I definitely prefer Inoue’s original version, which is a much spacier, synthier, bubblier house number not unlike something we would hear from Aeroplane or Tensnake. The 12″ is in shops now courtesy of Endless Flight, a branch of Japanese ‘parent’ label Mule Musiq- which also happens to be the home of Force of Nature and DJ KZA! Everything’s coming full circle here…

Kaoru Inoue – Etc

Last fall Eskimo released a compilation called Cosmic Balearic Beats.  It featured quite the cast of up and coming nudisco producers such as Maelstrom, Phoreski, In Flagranti, Coyote, Bottin and Lovelock.  “Dont Turn Away (From My Love)” was one of my top 10 tracks from last year and while the comp features some legitimate tracks, Rubber Room’s “Cockroach” was also a fave of mine, the tracks together were fairly homogeneous in style.  As a result the mix fell a bit flat, but now it’s time for round two and the promo copy Eskimo sent us is hot.  I mean hot!  The tracks come from a much more diverse sonic landscape, building and changing phases from astral disco to low slung italo to this balearic jungle jam from the collaboration of Peter Visti and Jakon Meyland.  This is the first single of three to be released from the comp so keep an eye out cuz the whole mix is hotter than the summer nights when you should be playing it.  Listen to all the children sing, yes maam.

Visti & Meyland – Yes Maam (All Night Long) (Original Mix)