No.8 x 2011 / Hauenstein Special No.2

Having set up his dream band and soon-to-be life project in Frankfurt with a crew of exceptional german musicians (of which keyboardist Richard Schönherz he had collaborated with on other projects as early as 1971, and Christian Kolonovitz he had met in a studio in 1975), Kurt ignited the sparks of a blooming array of studio collaborations all around Germany.
While most of these guys had their roots in psychedelic rock and kraut (like the prolific producer Peter Hauke) the new and genre-defying direction of Hauensteins Supermax granted them both access and high esteem as studio musicians in the emerging business of the disco sound.
In a cultural context where disco music could neither rest upon or be bound by the foundations of soul or rythm & blues, the sonic innovations of these long-haired krautrockers was much appraised. In the year following the first Supermax record, almost the whole band served for producer Bernt Möhrles project Chilly, delivering well-orchestrated yet raw disco in the shadows of the Chilly models/singers (note the puzzling weight gain and afro increase of the dude on the left side for the picture on the single cover, from what appears to be the same photo shoot as the albums).
The track Dance With Me featured on this record is a spaceous and chilly (no pun intended!) electronic trip of cosmic disco, and definitely stands out among the rest. Besides handling the bass and doing the additional vocals in the break, the arrangement of the song is also signed by Kurt.


CHILLY - DANCE WITH ME

No.5 x 2011

In 1978, only a year after Giorgio Moroder unleashed his futuristic smash hit on Swedish discoteques (you know the one where Donna Summer feels love) - drummer Åke Eriksson conviced his bandmates in the boogie rock outfit Wasa Express to record this tounge-in-cheek take on the italo disco sound, humoristicly done with nonsense lyrics and high-pitched smurf-like chants. But to judge from the outcome of this playfull mock hommage, it seems they might have found themselves actually enjoying it. Why else would they have spent their precious time away from the safe poses and riffs of their regular rock'n'roll repertoire to deliver such a spaced out excursion of disco perfection.

Again, I have to give credit to our friend V! (Oozlum) for spotting this one.

WASA EXPRESS - GET UP

No.2 x 2011

A mere glance at this amazingly awful sleeve of this record, you'd think that nothing good could come out of this fat Tom Selleck-lookalike. And it gets even wierder when you contemplate the fact that most of the career of this brittish artist, including of course his classic hit In Zaire, revolve around the theme of Africa. An obsession turned gimmick due to the fact that his breakthrough single was a tribute song to Mohammed Ali, which topped the charts when Ali won against Foreman in 1974 (The Rumble In The Jungle).

So despite the fact that this dude has more in common with James Last than say James Brown, with a theme like that it's likely that at least one of his songs hits the spot with some crazy afro action. And yes, there is such a song...


JOHNNY WAKELIN - AFRO AFRIQUE