In the race to mine the archive of early eighties sounds, there’s bound to be a few strange excavations. All kinds of “bad” music, not least of all disco (and its bastard progeny), have been dredged up, washed off, inspected, re-evaluated and finally defended: “You dismiss Antillean ska-folk disco, but actually…” Perhaps this intro is just an indication of my ignorance, not to mention my cynicism, toward the excesses of a necessary and interesting process. There are lots of instances of maligned genres containing fascinating musical ideas, could we but overcome our prejudice and listen carefully. Wally Badarou’s music is a fine example on this tip.

Having said all that, I’m failing to see what Todd “Tango” Terje does in “Belladonna” and “On the Beach.” To me at least, this is just MOR dreck that’s been given far more attention than it deserves. “Belladonna”, (originally by Andreas Vollenweider), is a kind of elevator music epic that belongs on the soundtrack to “Blame it on Rio,” melding a Brazilian jazz sound to disco and a yucky “ethnic” female vocal. Likewise, “On the Beach” (originally by Chris Rea) has all the hallmarks of a 1983 promo video for a three star conference centre in the Bahamas. Perhaps there’s “more to it than that” and (once again) this music is not being given its fair hearing. Okay, but you try listening to it. Blech.

Balearic Biscuits / bb04
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[Peter Chambers]

Call me a hater, but I find it really hard to summon words that could dignify anything called the “Kraak & Smaak Boogie Angst Remix.” Having said that, it’s not horrible, per se. In fact the Marrakesh-cum-gypsy vibe is rather charming, even if it’s the type of thing you’d shamefully hide from your friends of the Rotterdam or Cologne mindsets. Next gig I get at a swanky cocktail bar, though…

On the other hand, the Reverso 68 Remix is a beaut that allows the Taste of Honey sample to intrude precisely enough into the track. Which is a lot, but the best house music takes the overly familiar and recasts it in a funky new light. Vocals through delay, BPMs amped up, some ropey synths, live-sounding percussion—yeah, we’ve heard it all before, but in the wee hours of the morning or at 2 in the afternoon, this is just the thing to have you jumping up and down. The kind of track that you hardly notice while it’s on and then later realize was the best thing you heard all night. Highly recommended for all energetic deep-house and neo-disco DJs—it’s pliable without being overtly anthemic, and could quite comfortably spend most of the year in your crate without people rolling their eyes when you drop it.

G-Stone Recordings / GSMX2 027
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[Mallory O’Donnell]

It seems that the ancient tradition of the re-edit is nowadays as much in vogue as it was during disco’s heyday—perhaps even more so. Disco and boogie revivalists and old-schoolers Dimitri, Danny Krivit, and Greg Wilson have been hacking at it for ages, and now it seems everybody’s giving the old girl a spin. Just who Pilooski is, I couldn’t tell you—according to his discogs profile he eats feathers and is at least somewhat out of his gourd. Either way, these edits are damn well dirty enough for any kind of fetish to be perfectly alright with me. And not dirty in the Princess Superstar sense—these are some scratchy old joints exuding freakdom from their pores.

First up is Jackson Jones’ “I Feel Good,” which disco-raps its way into your heart with a frenetic slap-happiness, combining wobbly-arse percussion, walking bass and weird string samples, bringing the funk in all three ways. Then things go straight prog on you—”Kismet” is a re-edit of an Amon Duul II track (!) of space-folk-ethnic-jazz-rock meanderings, an invocation that mingles the spacy with the surreal. You could try dancing to it, but I would recommend avoiding the brown acid if you do. I think my brain finally went beyond the pale upon the arrival of “Glastonbury,” which is billed as a “Dirty Reissue.” Whatever that means, I call it Vertigo Records-style white funk drumming with a chorus of acid-folk casualties singing from the hippie hymnal. By which I mean go out, buy this, and turn on, man.

Dirty Edits / DLL005
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[Mallory O’Donnell]

It really doesn’t come much more transparent then the title of this little ditty—”Balearic Love” pretty much does what it says on the tin, which is certainly not a problem for this child. A sensuous, deep, casa de tropico number, it gets stark naked and runs around on the beach at 3 a.m. looking for hugs—and we’ve only reached the halfway mark. All the touchstones are here—lingering syn-strings, piano stabs, warm layers of
multiple melodic lines and drums that don’t so much drive as bolster the sexualized technology on display. There’s even an indecipherable vocal coming in at the song’s close, so you can vibe and chant away, at least until the rush cools off.

B-side “Bad Weather” mixes things up a bit and gets into squirrely funk land, which is more than fine—this time the rhythm is dominant and chunky like a 1983 dance dubplate, with the layering of multiple synths as prominent as on the flip, but to the tune of a more
stark and Euro-disco beat. Though not as memorable as the A-side, it gives us a little bit more to chew on in the bottom-end department, while still retaining the lovely midi-scapes of its partner. Completely predictable, yet somehow completely awesome.

Eskimo Records / 541416 501583
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[Mallory O’Donnell]

Antena were the greatest post-punk bossa nova band never to make it big outside of France. Their first single “The Boy from Ipanema” (co-produced by John Foxx and released on Factory Records’ Benelux outlet Les Disques Du Crépuscule) has been a sleeper hit ever since, prompting this, the second re-release of the original material in CD form, for your retro-diggin’ cool-kid delectation. Who better then to remix the originals than men of the moment Todd (not) disco Terje and the re-update / re-edit master Joakim (Kitsuné, Tigersushi, Versatile, Pokerflat)? Joakim’s mix does unto Antena as Radio Slave recently did unto the Kills, rendering the original pumped and beefed enough for this season’s dancefloors while still retaining something of the original atmosphere, albeit very much in the background. He also adds some nice, celestial chimes and shapes the motherload into a growly arrangement with far bigger’n’furrier balls than any of the original members could have conceivably had (or wanted). Terje’s mix keeps much closer to the original arrangement, retaining the vocal and the flow, but sending the whole kit (as is his wont) into deep disco spaceland. Compared to Joakim’s mix it all seems initially underwhelming, but repeat listening reveals… a repeat of first impressions, plus the vague presentiment that neither treatments of the record—Joakim’s “too much” and Terje’s “too little”—have the right amounts of the good stuff to satisfy. Go for the original.

Permanent Vacation / PERMVAC 003-01
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[Peter Chambers]

Two sides from the Daniel Wang-affiliated Green, two different shades of roomy instrumental grace. A-side “Bunko” is spaced enough for Prins Thomas fans but provides enough catchy thrills that you’re more inclined to have a dance-off than nod off. The organic guitar that runs through “Bunko” like a warm salt-water wave turns a sun-tanned shoulder or two in “Divisadero,” reappearing as a strummed cascade on an acoustic six-stringer(!). This track should warrant immediate inclusion on every one of the 60 downtempo collections coming out this month, except it’s far too toothsome to be wasted on that crowd. God, I miss the summer already.

Modal Music / MODAL005
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[Mallory O’Donnell]

Loft-inspired Italo “Cosmic” Disco from the late 70’s gets a new lease on life thanks to the Compost label. I suppose it’s enormously cheeky of me, but I’m going ahead and calling this stuff proto-Balearic house. At tempos slightly languorous, a dance of Afro-Cuban disco and De Falla glamour progresses across a ballroom built by acid-plied German architects attempting to recreate the Paradise Garage before it actually existed. Absurd group names, Arabesque fantasy, emotionalism-warring-with-futurism and science-fiction pretensions are all optional but highly appreciated. Sense of humor not optional.

Compost / Compost 230-1
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[Mallory O’Donnell]

DJ Harvey adds some BPM to Lindstrøm’s original a/k/a “Chaka Khan and Rufus Go to Space and Play Slow Jams,” that’s about all I can hear as for a difference, though at this speed Christabelle does sound more like Nina Hagen than CK. But simple fixes like this, frankly, are a nice change of pace in the current 12″ climate, where “remix” typically means My Whole New Track With Your Incongruous Vocals. Listen to early extended 12″ funk remixes and there’s mostly just more instrumentation in the mix that the producers left out of the radio edit, lest they scare the radio-edit-listening populace. For good reason, the show’s called Nip/Tuck, not New/Face.

Wax Records / WAX 012
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[Nick Sylvester]

Windsurf is two shorts-wearing Californian beardos doing what Californian beardos do. And that’s chopping a razored-out line that connects Fleetwood Mac at their most emotionally numb to krautrock just as it became consciously beautiful (and thus uncool). Windsurf make yacht rock walk the plank and take Metro Area out of the city and onto the on the beach ‘til you can taste the salt in their greasy hair as you kiss them. Therefore, The Windsurf EP is a blissed out easy-glistening glide-by that’s unashamed to sprawl with a washed out Jan Hammer t-shirt riding up over a tanned, but slack belly. It may help you through hard times—it has for me. I’d call it nu-balaeric if I didn’t really hate people who like that crap.

Sentrall / SENDIGI001
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[Patrick McNally]

Rub N Tug’s previous mixes were recorded live, complete with shitty mixing, fuzzed out sound, and skull-fucking EQ—the good stuff—but this one takes a different approach, possibly because a third disc with corny mixer FX would be one too many. Instead we get a pristine and minimally mixed set of electronic disco 45s slowed to 33, including Gino Soccio, Soft Cell, and err, King Crimson. The tracks are less “chopped and screwed” than edited and cosmic-fied: it’s bad pills, not heavy syrup. At its best, beats string loosely together like solar systems, with reverb draped around them like rings; drawled out sax lines might as well be monophonic synths and guitars sound like beached whales. At its worst you might be begging to push the pitch control back to zero. Overall, this is one for those gross, sweaty nights post-clubbing where the only way to get through it is to make one’s-self feel worse. I’m sure we’ve all had some of those.

aNYthing / ANY006-CD
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[Patrick McNally]