No. 13 x 2012 / Philippe Renaux Special No.7

I just had to re-visit this old special feature I did on the french cosmic mastermind Philippe Renaux, since I found this extraordinary gem on the B-side of the Night Heroes Moroder-medley (produced by Silvio Puzzolu who also made a Kraftwerk-medley under the name Between The Sheets and produced the legendary Bagarre project). Sidetrack: how come nobody makes medleys anymore? Wouldn't everybody want to hear an Alden Tyrell-produced medley of Patrick Cowley tracks? Or a Lindström-produced medley of Philippe Renaux for that matter.
OK back to the matter at hand, O.I.M. is a collaboration between Renaux, Puzzolu & Luigi "Svengile" Venegoni (who was is Stratospheric Band) so you know it's gonna get heavy when these dudes get together. They start off with a tight uptempo boogie-beat straight out of 1983 and then throw in some surf guitars (!?) to keep it weird all the way to the synth/vocal chorus. The acronym of the song title may puzzle you at first (what could it mean? Open Information Model? Operator Interface Module?Ordained Interfaith Minister?) - the answer is of course much simpler than that, it's just a vocal translation and mimic of the squelshing sound that they churn out on that synthesizer. Genius!


NIGHT HEROES - O.I.M.

No.12 x 2012

I'm usually not a fan of airports, it all feels like a never-ending episode of typical Seinfeld-complications  like accidentaly waiting in the wrong line or having someone take your luggage from the bag line by mistake because you have similar breifcases. And I rarely have time to get in that continental groove of feeling like a globetrotter because I'm always looking at my wristband clock worrying about departure times, transfers and the looming threat of delays. But it's nice to switch that impression off sometimes in favor of a more carefree and glamorous one, like that of Marc Harris for instance. He doesn't give a flying fuck about the boring reality of commercial flight transportation. Through his sunglasses everything has a shimmer of adventure and style; the airport is a symbolic structure of freedom and movement with its high ceilings and glass walls - not an oversized waiting room with expensive distractions. And when the airplane takes off into the air, Marc takes off into the air. He alone is soaring through the clouds with his perfect hair.


MARC HARRIS - AIRPORT

No. 11 x 2012

Check it out! Premiere tonight will feature a 4 Hr DJ-Set with your truly. Coming up the following dates we have some very special guests that I will hopefully be able to announce soon. Right now, I can reveal that next week, 6 of July, we have Johnny TooBad (Jonas Dahlström) of Hermanos & Heathen (and another kind of club out in the woods that also starts with an H). 

No. 10 x 2012

There's been a few changes around here, I've made a brand new logo for the blog for instance. And I've recently been invited to join the team at HNGR (an abbreviation of hangar, the place where they keep airplanes and raves in). I will host a swedish offspring of the Diskoakademin blog there, with a bit of different content for the swedish audience but also some cross-pollination will definitly occur.
HNGR is a brand new web magazine for club culture in Sweden, with some heavy people involved. Besides myself on blogging duties there's Tooli & Mad Mats of Local Talk Records, Sanna La Fleur, Adeline & Apollo De Azizi. A lot of focus on house in other words, so thank god they have me on board to add the disco cheese. So head on over and get your vocabulary fix! Link here. 

Also, I'm premiering my new open air club BLEACH tonight in Malmö at Moriska Paviljongen. Starts at 19:00. FB-event here.

No.9 x 2012

It's been a while since you heard from me here, since I've been finishing my bachelor degree (not in disco though). But I have been keeping myself busy on that scene as well, providing the third volume for the very interesting Edits-series by netbased label Diavol.
The Argentinian label is run by local discophiles Premini & Jovan, and they have developed a quite uniqe concept with this project. All volumes are released digital and free of charge, accompanied by cover art from interesting young artists and video trailers in the same vein of musical visualization as In Flagrantis promo films.
The first volume features edits of obscure Brazilian disco, new wave and pop signed by themselves, the second volume had Nassau edit the local flavours of his home country Italy. For this third volume I pitched in with one edit of a Swedish original (Subway At Night) but expanded to an international scope on the following three cuts (spanning three diferent continents - Japan, UK & USA) and also decided to keep the names of the originals to myself - not out of pride, I've just always enjoyed the mysterious side of edits more (it makes the crate digging so much more fun).
The cover art was provided by Los Angeles-based Cleon Peterson, and is one of the pieces of a series called The Practice Of Masters.
All edits are now available for free on Soundcloud but you can also show your love by getting the whole volume for just a dollar at the Diavol site.

No.8 x 2012

As some of you may recall I did an edit some time ago of a track by Richard Schönherz called Between Judgement And Madness, which I released under my own name with the title Habla Taco Marijuana. I gave it away as a christmas present here in 2010 and ever since that it's been living a life of its own (someone even put it on Youtube).

By chance, I was digging through my own collection and stumbled upon the Black Jack record, which I had bought for the wonderfully sleezy Jungleman Jive (as it was re-edited by Loud E). I thought I should give the whole record another chance and when I came to the title track, it turns out it's a semi-cover of that very Schoenherz-track.

It's not so surprising of course, since Peter Hauke who is behind Black Jack also produced the Schönherz record (and they're both in the extended circe surrounding Kurt Hauensteins Supermax). Schönherz is also part of the production team on the Black Jack record, and so is drummer Hartmut Pfanmüller who plays on both those records.

Very much a friendly affair, and a nice reinterpretation which speeds up and tightens the groove from the 1978 version, leaving out the long and spacey interlude which I also cut out on my edit. There's some different synth figures here that are bordering on cheesy, and the harmonica is a wierd touch. All in all it's a bit more stiff and mechanic in it's approach, but with a coked out sleezy charm that complements the rather pretentious aspect of the "original".

BLACK JACK - HOT PASSION

No.7 x 2012

Spotnicks was not a band in the classic sense of the word, but more of an institution that carried on in various constellations for decades, spitting out records in a variety of styles and quality based loosely around the surf sound of the 1960's. Their gimmick however, was the cosmic aesthetics of the space age (which I'm sure gave them a lot of gigs in the USSR). This gimmick played out well even long after the race to the moon was won, and gave them entrance to the cosmic side of the disco spectrum when 1978 came around: when the band somehow ended up in the hands of a bunch of french guys who cut the amazing electronic disco record Never Trust Robots with them throwning in some surf riffs here and there.

Anyway, on to 1983 and the band sees a new formation away from the instrumental surfing to a more rock oriented format with actual songs of their own, but not without a cosmic touch. The title track off this record is a loud bass-driven sleeze-fest with Phil Collins-size drums that works really well as a late night anthem, complete with a healthy dose of synth swooshes and the chatter of the space station control room during the guitar solos.

SPOTNICKS - DROP ME IN THE MIDDLE OF THE UNIVERSE