TOMPA vs. TOBINSKI

My friend and dj colleague Tobinski has pulled out his bag of tricks on our Swedish rock star Tomas Ledins disco outing, dubbing up the intro and pulling the breaks before releasing the full force of this amazingly funky groove.
This track is from the self-titled debut album by Ledin released in 1977, which also features the seminal smash hit on the edit-scene Ta Mej, reworked by both norwegian Rune Lindaek and Gothenburgs Just Like Music.
Me & Tobinski will soon premiere our very own club at a joint called Carib Creol here in Malmö, so keep your peepers wide for the dates, because it will surely be legendary.

THOMAS LEDIN - DANSA DANSA (TOBINSKI EDIT)

GAY LEATHER VIDEO

I was just informed by my friend Nora that the probably happiest gay man in Berlin, Mr Daniel Wang (who I by chance happened to mention in my previous post), is playing here in town just two weeks from now! All thanks to the ambitious and broad agenda of our local techno patron Adam Lundberg (of Röda Rubinen).

The California-born dj, producer and record label owner has become synonymous with the renaissance of the classic disco sound of the bathhouses and Fire Island of the late 1970s, starting off in the mid-1990s by adopting a strictly analogue approach to producing and releasing dance music on his Balihu imprint, as well as through his work behind the dj deck defending the legitimacy of the dramatic & joyous disco sound away from the mere patronising grips of "cheesy". This ongoing love affair extends into a very perceptive vision of a dancefloor that has more in common with the social ethics of predecessors like David Mancuso or Larry Levan than most of his contemporary dj collagues. This is quite evident in a recent piece he wrote for Self-Titled Magazine, listing his favourite choices in this category.
The links to gay culture is also obviously relevant to this musical legacy, and in Daniel Wangs case the connection between the two is constantly blurred. Most notably in the 2002 release of the 12" Panoramic, featuring as a B-side Two Tracks We Made In 1999 For A Gay Leather Video, which by its title pretty much tells the story straight up. (...did you get the word-play pun on that? A bit cheap, yeah?)
What might chock you though, at least if you are straight, is that this is not an energetic or sleezy display of effective grooves & hooks that we commonly associate with pornographic soundtracks, but a rather sensual, melancolic and even romantic track composed with simple, delicate synthesizer melodies and drums.

DANIEL WANG - TWO TRACKS WE MADE IN 1999 FOR A GAY LEATHER VIDEO

(On the vinyl release, both tracks share the same title. This is only the second track, b3.)

DIGGING UP BARCELONA

I have been very absent here due to a whole lot of field trips and archeological work, so rest asured that I have plenty of great disco treasures for you to study before the year is over.
The last week I've spent in Barcelona getting my fingers covered in dust and arguing with spaniards about over priced and worn out rarities.
Luckily a was able to dig up some primo spanish stuff as well as some new favourites, like this extremly hard-hitting instrumental groover from the masterminds of disco legends Tee Scott and the Yugoslavian Began Cekic, known mostly for his cover of The Police Voices Inside My Head under the alias Common Sense.
Dollar Bin Jams has an excerpt from an interview with Tee Scott conducted by Daniel Wang that sheds some light on the business behind these rather raw renditions of then contemporary disco productions.

BROOKLYN EXPRESS - CHANGE POSITION

SPECIAL GUEST: COSMIC DUDES

The slogan in swedish that you see under the Academy logo can roughly be translated as: the hunt for the cosmic vinyl. 

No one has taken that quite as litteral as the two longtime friends Charles & Mitch, who run the independent online webshop Cosmic Dudes, a place where the most obscure records ever produced finally see the light of day, and end up in the hands of true connaisseurs ready to spend that extra dime.  

The Academy has the honour of hosting a current Top 3 courtesy of the dudes themselves, kicking off in epic proportions with this disco bomb picked by Charles:

"I picked a very great track to start with, which had amazing success in our store and which I believe has everything you’d expect from a good disco dancer.
Victor Bach has been behind some silly disco material, then delivered this supercool disco monster that i found a few years back and then re-discovered when looking up records for a possible compilation last year.
I shared this finding with my soulbrother John (http://johncampoxford. blogspot.com/) who recently did a fantastic edit, tightening the whole bitch to the max. The edit will be released on vinyl soon. This is the original full lenght track, ripped directly from my vinyl. Some of the vocal parts can be missed, that's why we did an edit, but overall this is a very timeless, slick, unearthed track , which leaves you wondering why this wasn’t huge
back then."

VICTOR BACH'S EASY - LIVING IN HARMONY

TWENTY FOUR AND COUNTING

Since today is my birthday I thought it would be nice to have my own orchestra compose a theme song of all my favourite things:
heavy basslines & classic disco guitars, some whacked out strings, a heavy rock section,
the latino-style percussion break (with a deep toned male voice saying random words of approval)and some sprinkles of synthesizer magic to top it off.
All way below the 100bpm mark and dragged out for about 6 minutes, and there you have it.

RIZZOLO DISKO ORCHESTRA - MY OWN COSMIC WAY

The polaroid of me was taken by Kristoffer Matti, RevK of Stephen Hawkings, for the new project Prejka, a combined blog for all the local creators in the field of cosmic & psychadelic music, including Vidderna, Lugnet, Kristallen, Psychic Malmö and myself.

DISCO FOR CHAMELEONS

This is the original version of what Bonar Bradburry turned into the cosmic bomb of the year with his majestic re-edit Carlos The Jackal.
From a broodingly dark intro not far from an Argento soundtrack by Goblin, and further onto an uplifting anthem of crashing drums and funky bass, this is surely as cosmic as disco can get.

GARY NUMAN - MUSIC FOR CHAMELEONS

GUEST MIX: DJ SEAMLESS

Hold your phones! Pass the smokes! Put on your boots! Because there's a new mixtape in the house. This time from my friend Olof, or Seamless as he is known behind the wheels of steel.
The Academy is all about introducing and inspiring new perspectives on disco, but I have to say we have strayed pretty far from the conventional definition of disco.
Good then that there are DJs like Seamless who have a fresh, youthfull (and dare I say not so nerdy) take on the disco sound.
Crate digging jocks might be turned off at the sight of titles such as Play that Funky Music White Boy, the stuff of gas station compilations. But it just takes a pair of ears and feet to appreciate that good music is simply good music.

The Source - Elektrons feat. Pete Simpson
Sing Sing - Gaz
Love Sensation (Rough Mix) (Dim's DJ Friendly Re-Edit) - Loleatta Holloway
Don't Give Up - Elektrons feat. Holly Backler
Seconds (12" version) - The Salsoul Orchestra feat. Loleatta Holloway
Play That Funky Music White Boy - Wild Cherry
Push Push - Brick
Nefertiti - Wisdom
Doin' The Dog (Extended) - Creme D'cocoa
War - Edwin Starr
Moment Of My Life - Inner Life feat. Jocelyn Brown
Super Funky - Amigos Invisibles
Disco Lights - Dexter Wansel
Ladies Night (Extended) - Kool & The Gang

DJ SEAMLESS - LADIES NIGHT MIX