Summer Jam Series Vol. 5

I'm lounging under a shady tree, a cool breeze blowing on a warm day. Everything in the park seems to slow, she speaks softly, I don't know what she says, but she can say it all day.

Yelle- Tu Es Beau

Her album is super excellent fun. Buy it. Love it. Dance to it in your undies.

Oh Susie...

Just a little pop disco happiness to start you up this Monday. Hopefully this will keep me peppy on my twelve hour road trip from Arizona to San Francisco today. Aargh.

Secret Service- Oh Susie

I'd like a little feedback on the new file hosting service. Zshare has begun to really bug me, being that it often freezes up my firefox and come on, theres like 8000 screens before the download. After a good long time checking out options, this one seems to be the frontrunner. The only con I see so far is that theres no listening to the tracks first, my apologies to my download limited visitors! Anyway, let me know how you like it. Oh, and the song too.

Shining Through

One of my favorite albums ever is Disco Volante by Mr. Bungle. A strange sprawling album with seemingly every genre dragged kicking and screaming into Bungle's bubbling cauldron. At the time of its release, I still hadn't found "my music", meaning I labored under the idea that people liked one kind of music at a time, you were a punk rocker, a metalhead, a rapper, a raver etc. I enjoyed all but could not give the rest up for one. Disco Volante destroyed that idea. It careened spastically between disparate genres and ideas, sometimes co-mingling happily, sometimes pitted against each other to the death. Whatever it was, I loved it. I loved the idea of music being the only genre.

Lately nordic band Shining has brought that feeling I had twelve years ago. Music with reckless abandon, unexpected beauty found underneath bruised and battered chords and changes. Music not doing what you think it will.

Shining- Psalm

Buy Grindstone.

Starship 109

I've been searching (sometimes passively, sometimes aggressively) for a copy of Mistral's 1978 single Starship 109 for almost 2 years. After a heavy stint of translating Russian last night I finally can enjoy my own copy without watching the video snippet on Youtube. Its a latin flavored space ballad that sets the blueprint for The Rah Band's "Clouds Across the Moon" some 7 years later. The sweet flamenco guitar is courtesy of band member Robbie Van Leeuwen, founding member of the Dutch band Shocking Blue,who had a big hit with "Venus" (later covered by Bananarama). Yay for fun facts! So anyway, was it worth the search? Yup.

Mistral- Starship 109

Hey There!

I loooove this song. All you gotta do is look at the album cover to know this is awesome. Seriously. Look at it. Booby planets? Wow. Funky, spacey and crazy catchy. My favorite part by far is the pitched down back up vocals on the chorus. Sounds like Tim Curry in Legend.

Lucrethia & Azoto 14,008- Hey There

I Heart ZYX

Its impossible to decide what the best part of this video is. Theres too many fantastic things happening at once. One of my favorite elements gets a little lost because of Koto's keyboard karate, so please pay special attention to the spacemen moving excruciatingly slow in the back. Why so slow? Well, because... you know, theres low gravity in space.

Koto- Jabdah

Thanks to Marc for youtubin so I don't have to.

Two Piece

Phreek Plus One are actually three people. So, do two of them make up one phreek? They are also Italian. Therefore they know how to make some disco. Must be something in the meatballs over there. Their new EP out on Compost Black Label (entitled Compost Black Label #22. I know. Ingenious title.) is must have for cosmic leaning chicks and dudes. Three tracks of strange beauty. Don't believe me? Behold, Bikini.

Phreek Plus One- Bikini

Nice right? Support Italian badassness. Buy vinyl or digital.

Everybody Likes Ice Cream

Sebastien Leger has been killing it. For like, almost ten years. Heres a bouncy little filter house jam called "Ice Cream" off Riviera's 2000 comp "Cruel Summer". The guitar in this jams. Serious. I think my lady and I picked this one up in Amsterdam that year. Oh, what jetsetters we were...

Sebastien Leger- Ice Cream

I miss music like this.

Tikibot

Imagine you're aboard the Love Boat, gliding across pixelated seas, a tikibot band playing by the pool, the warm breeze in your face... hold it... perfect. Now listen to this.

Space Art- Welcome to Love

Dragon Jacked

If you are like me, you probably have this song on your computer already and have never even heard it. It just popped up on shuffle and I'm blown. It sounds like Todd Edwards inhuman microediting skills mixed with the Jaxx' magic dust of bleeps, bells, and whistles. By Ratcliffe? Who? Oh! Simon Ratcliffe of Basement Jaxx?! Now it all makes sense. You guys lost me on the last album, but a few more tracks like this and I'll be right back with ya. As for Dragonette... eh.

Dragonette- I Get Around (Ratcliffe Remix)

Looking...

Picked up this Johnny Chingas record at a thrift store in hopes that it was another version of Automatic Lover. Nope. However it's still amazing. An unrelenting disco beat, a strange handclap, lots of synth squiggle interludes and a nice little tune. In my excitement about Mr. Chingas I searched out anything I could find and came up with this E.T. inspired piece of work. Kraftwerk meets Santana? Hells yeah.

Johnny Chingas- I'm Looking for an Automatic Lover
Johnny Chingas- Phone Home

Ay Hee Hoo

Methusalem must have been crazy fuckers. Black hole starts off pretty normal(for space disco) then veers into this carnival merry go round type tune complete with a yodeling vocoder. Yes. A yodeling vocoder. Just what you've always wanted.

Methusalem- Black Hole

By the way, thats the Yodelking, Franzi Lang up there.
They don't call him Yodelking for nothing.

I Am Legion

LSB are killing it! Hot on the heels of the Fog 12" comes the new Super Discoteca Vol. 2 with stellar edits of Barbara Norris, Blondie, Gino Soccio, Fun Fun and P. Lion. How does Pete Herbert have time for it all? My fave here has to be this edit of Mark Shreeve's own remix of Legion.

Mark Shreeve- Legion (LSB Edit)
and the OG...
Mark Shreeve- Legion (Spacemix)

Thief

Heres Tangerine Dream trying their hand at a Moroder-esque slo-mo synth movie theme. Nice.

Tangerine Dream- Beach Theme

The Whole 12 Inches Vol 6

My favorite coke song ever. Debbie and Giorgio together? Can't go wrong. Can you imagine how much coke probably got lost in Moroder's trademark moustache? Oodles.

Debbie Harry- Rush Rush (Extended Mix)
Debbie Harry- Rush Rush (Dub Mix)

Kenix

A little slice of sunshine from West End Records...

Kenix- Theres Never Been No One Like You (Long Version)

Jimmy!

I normally try (try is the keyword) to stay out of the big blogger hype posts but this one's so strange and lovely that I just have to share. M.I.A. makes a foray into disco Bollywood territory with extra echoey vocals (she sings!), big strings and touches of twinkly 8 bit bleeps. All supposedly thrown down by Timbo?!? If thats true, this one almost makes up for Shock Value. Keyword, almost. Scratch that. Turns out Switch masterminded this one, so theres nothing to make up for Shock Value. Thanks to Stretch for the heads up.

M.I.A.- Jimmy