No.5 x 2012

I did a guest mix recently for one of my favourite blogs, FRWCTRL. The idea of the mix is based on the arty and surrealistic low budget porn movie Night Dreams from 1981, one of two (the other being Café Flesh from 1982) porn movies written by Jerry Stahl under the pseudonym Herbert W. Day. Most people know Jerry Stahl for his biography-turned-to-film Permanent Midnight of 1998, where Ben Stiller stars as a sweaty and leather-clad Stahl in a very un-romantic portrayal of his own heroin addiction during his years in L.A. as a writer for the TV-series ALF and Moonlighting. Both Night Dreams and Café Flesh are dark and twisted visual experiences with the same aesthetics of the post-punk era as Liquid Sky, and the music in these films are great. The trailer for Night Dreams (which is also the intro & outro for my mix) uses a sample from electronic pioneer Morton Subotnicks Wild Boar from 1968.

SERGIO RIZZOLO - NIGHT DREAMS

No.6 x 2012

Continuing on from our previous post, here is the track that's featured on the Hollywood Seven EP as the German Version. While touring with Glass Candy in San Diego in 2009, Johnny Jewel found this cover of the Jon English/Alides Hidding track Hollywood Seven in an alley shop behind a pharmacy (also a cosmic circumstance of fate since the Albuterol Mix that started the whole thing refers to Mike Simonettis asthma medicine... which can be bought at pharmacies!). The german title of this cover is however a free interpretation of the original (in translation it means "Big City Lights", and there's no mention of Hollywood anywhere), so Jewel must have memorized the names of the two persons who are credited as the writers of the original song, Gloria Sklerov & Harry Lloyd, in order to have spotted this gem.

The first recording of the song was in 1976 by Jon English, which is a slow moving rock bagatelle. But Juliane Werding & her co-producers has clearly based her electronically loaded version on Alides Hiddings interpretation, which both came out in 1980. And she had some great company, apart from her husband Tobi Pflug the credit is shared with a certain Ulrich A. Rudolf who was also involved on the amazing cosmic boogie classic Don't Stay For Breakfast by Ströer as well as in the "electronisch rocktheater"-project Xynn. And on mixing duties? Ralf Nowy of Methusalem! Of course, it's possible that Jewel picked up this record simply on account of those names alone without knowing that this would turn out to be a cover of Hollywood Seven, I know I would have.

JULIANE WERDING - GROSSSTADTLICHTER

No.24 x 2011

"Come on everybody - and dance the techno disco". The first release on spanish label Blanco Y Negro was this single by the Barcelona-based italo-outfit Jules Tropicana. Jules Bikoko of Cameroon (seen on the cover) who was 1/3 of the group delivered some of the most undermixed vocals in the history of dance music on this track. It' always fun to play this to someone and see them concentrating on making out what he's actually singing. But the wonderfully unenthusiastic cheer-on to come on and "dance the techno disco" lends quite a lot of charm to his otherwise monotonous performance. This is a slowed down version for your listening pleasure.

JULES TROPICANA - COME ON (SLOW)

No.15 x 2010 / Alberto Radius Special No.2

An early italian disco rarity often contributed to Stefano Pulga (although he is merely credited as a co-writer). The three releases made by this strange project were all either arranged or written & produced by Alberto Radius, along with different musicians.
The title refers to the Vatican pope Karol Jozef Wojtyla, who got the job in 1978. Apparently a pretty uptight pope, this was probably a very satirical remark on his behalf.
Stevie Kotey picked this one for his compilation Disco Italia: Essential Italo Disco Classics 1977-1985 on Strut in 2008.
With its wonderful blend of proto-italo electronics and classic New York disco funk baseline, this is one of the best works in the Radius catalogue.

FREDDY THE FLYING DUTCHMAN AND THE SISTINA BAND - WOJTYLA DISCO DANCE

No.13 x 2010

This guy, besides being the voice of Uriah Heep for a while, is also one of the men behind the cosmic masterpiece The Ultimate Warlord of 1978, as one half of the brief group The Warlords with Peter Green (not that Peter Green though).
And later during the following year of 1979, also together with Peter Green, they released the album Super Nova as Intergalactic Orchestra, which is even harder to get your hands on than the Warlord-single.
With a resume like that in your bag you can't really go wrong, right? And so in the same year as The Warlords hit the discoteques, Byrons solo debut hit the racks with a curious blend of blues rock trivialities and a black sheep in the form of proto-italo afro rocker African Breeze. Being a perfect blend of of the seemingly unlikely career personas Byron was juggling at the time, this track hits hard with all the right moves, and I'm amazed I didn't hear of this sooner.
It's much likely that this is the ace of secret weapons up many discjockeys sleeves.


DAVID BYRON - AFRICAN BREEZE

No.7 x 2010

This track, here re-edited by Alden Tyrell, was released on the compilation Clone Box Jams a few years back, no doubt due to it's clean and hard sound as it rubbed shoulders with Chicago house productions as well as the electric Garage classic Heat You Up, Melt You Down by Shirley Lites.
Although on that compilation this composition is credited to Harold Haltermeyer & Peter Moesser, and the track is titled So High (which could suggest that another release was made still unknown to Discogs... or more likely that Mr. Tyrell wanted to keep this treasure to himself).
Anyway, I just spotted this wonder of Germanian cosmica among the secret offers of Cosmic Dudes latest batch of up-for bids. So go spend a fortune and then laugh loudly while stroking a white cat as you build your empire of hard-to-find cosmic records.

PETER MOESSER'S MUSIC - HIGH (Alden Tyrell Re-Edit)

No.3 x 2010

This amazing display of cinematic excellence that is the movie Raiders of Atlantis (or Atlatis Interceptor, or Atlantis Inferno, or I Predatori de Atlantide - depending on which country it was released) was conceived in Italy with a semi-american cast in 1983. The story takes place in Miami 1994 when the population of Atlantis appear out of nowhere due to nuclear radiation of course, and they're a pissed off biker gang with face paint and uzis ...of course.
Apart from the amazing acting and scenery, the music is ace. Totally saucy boogie-disco and arpeggio mood pieces laden with rocking guitars and that typical "action" drum sound.
Guido & Maurizio De Angelis are the brothers behind this soundtrack as well as countless other italian movies of the 1970s and 1980s.
The main theme was released as a 12" single by Kangaroo Team Records under the name Black Inferno. According to Discogs that's also the title of the track, which makes sense since it is sung repeatedly throughout both the instrumental and vocal version (with plenty of macho growling)

BLACK INFERNO - THEME FROM ATLANTIS INTERCEPTOR (INSTRUMENTAL)

THE ITALIAN MASH-UP

Mash-ups was a terrible gimmick of a trend in the early 21st century, preceeded by the great DJ boom in the 1990s that led people to believe that anything that was conceived by a DJ and written about in magazines like The Face or Dazed & Confused was the shit. Which it was of course, until the hangover came and sober ears shivered at the sound of 2 Many Djs.
What might have slipped our attention though, is that long before the word mash-up was the coolest word to spit out in a club or record store, some crazy italian dudes were making money off the same concept, but for the simplicity of things merely calling it medleys.
Only with the difference of less available technology and harder legal issues on their plates, they did what the early hip hop scene had done before them and rounded up a bunch of studio musicians to play the stuff they wanted to hear.
Whoever idea it was then to have a band record cheesy italo mash-up covers of Deep Purple and Ten Years After (Smoke Like A Man) or Michael Jackson and Greg Kihn Band (B. Project) is something for the historians to figure out. Stefano Pulga was however the main force behind this pink project, and did manage to pull off a few pretty funky creations. This is my favourite:

PINK PROJECT - DER DA DA DA

DISCO ACADEMY CRIBS

Marco Sarto & Stefano Muratore have been italo disco afficionados since they met in the early 1980s, hanging out at their local club Chic in Saarland, the national chameleont that for now belongs to Germany. Reunited now after some 20 years, they have teamed up 

as The Robot Scientists to continue the legacy that they discovered together as kids. 

With their Musica de Batticuore mixes, now up to volume 13, they have unearthed some amazing fragments from the far off corners of music history, mixed together with contemporary disco productions to a striking vision of a timeless and uncompromising sound that seeks to redefine our notion of what disco was and will be.

So it is with great honor that we are the first to offer two slices of re-edited disco magic from the archives (which from the picture above you can see are immense!) of these Disco Academy professors. 

And don't forget to check out all the volumes of Musica de Batticuore, available for download on their Myspace, and celebrated by the likes of Professor Genius & Flemming Dalum.

 

MAGIC MEN - POPCORN (THE ROBOT SCIENTISTS EDIT)

BRAND IMAGE - ARE YOU LOVING? (THE ROBOT SCIENTISTS INSTR. EDIT)