[Mix for NTS Radio] Getting Warmer Episode 16

Here’s my newest episode of Getting Warmer for NTS Radio. This is effectively about me wishing I had a car to drive around in all summer. If you like it, you can download an mp3 version here. Enjoy!

Tracklist:
1. John Martyn – Hole In The Rain
2. Afro-Cuban Band – Something’s Gotta Give (Todd Terje Re-Kutt)
3. Mave & Dave – You Are Delicious
4. High Resolution & Paolo Del Prete – Sweepin’ Off
5. Gaznevada – I.C. Love Affair
6. Taro Tokugawa – Here My Dear
7. Felix – Tiger Stripes
8. Kid Creole & The Coconuts – Annie, I’m Not Your Daddy
9. Salif Keita – Koukou (Hober Mallow Remix)
10. Miki Matsubara – 真夜中のドア/Stay With Me
11. Key Tronics Ensemble – Calypso Of House (Paradise Version)
12. Roxy Music – India
13. Commodores – Nightshift

Gino Soccio – Face To Face, 1982

Feeling heartbroken for peers, friends, musicians, and artists who have been affected by the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland. Like so many others, I’m unable to imagine what my life would be like without DIY, and often illegal, spaces for art, music, and living. These spaces are increasingly vital as cities become prohibitively expensive, and the news coverage that blames the victims of such a terrible loss is deeply upsetting. To echo others: this could have been any of us.

In the spirit of cultures that will, by necessity, continue to build beautiful things in marginal places, I wanted to share a favorite disco record (though to be fair, this record was a heavily produced chart-topper, not a homegrown experiment). This is one of my favorite records to dance to, and is also a rare instance of a disco LP that’s solid all the way through. Impeccably tasty production–hard to say no to this one. Please keep dancing!

[Mix for NTS Radio] Getting Warmer Episode 4

Listen to my fourth episode of Getting Warmer for NTS Radio below. I tried to make a make out mix, but I think it got too heavy-handed to be actually sexy and might be better suited for roller skating or something. Slo-mo disco, sleepy funk, breathy vocals. Lmk if anyone successfully soundtracks a make-out session with this. You can download an mp3 version here. Enjoy!

Tracklist:
1. Vera — Come With Me
2. Karen Carpenter — Midnight
3. Andrea Lyn — Hold On To Your Heart
4. Virna Lindt — Underwater Boy
5. Zenit — Waitin’
6. Marti Caine — Love The Way You Love Me
7. Lustt — Pillow Talk
8. Linda Di Franco — The Look Of Love
9. Susan Cadogan — Feeling Is Right
10. The Makers — Don’t Challenge Me
11. Hector Zazou & Barbara Gogan — Dangerous
12. Rare Silk — Storm
13. Craig T. Cooper — Sweet Water

Alexander Robotnick – Ce N’est Q’un Début, 1984

Classic. Maurizio Dami (aka Alexander Robotnick) went on to collaborate with traditional musicians from India, Algeria, and Kurdistan; release music for transcendental meditation; give Florence its first ambient music festival; and start a label, as well as release a slew of electro and disco records, though it’s his first release that most people remember for its unabashed, almost grotesque dance floor classics. Relentless and completely disinterested in taking itself seriously. Enjoy!

Black Devil – Disco Club, 1978

Black Devil’s Disco Club falls in the heavily mythologized, mysteriously resurrected music-of-nebulous-origin category, in the vein of Lewis or Charanjit Singh. Purportedly released in 1978 by Bernard Fevre under pseudonym “Junior Claristidge” (cool), Disco Club went completely unnoticed–was the world not ready for deep, dark, sublime disco hypnosis?–until Aphex Twin rereleased it on Rephlex Records in a series of 12″s in 2004, to the sound of critics tripping over themselves to make sweeping statements about this being one of the most important electronic records ever released, et cetera. The music was so ahead of its time both in structure and in production that many cried foul, suspecting an Aphex-Twin style hoax. Fairly so: I’m still skeptical of the release date every time I hear it. It’s too tasty, too prescient and too perfect.

All six of these tracks are similar in length and feeling, differing in a few BPM, shifting drum patterns, and vocal lines–but several of them move seamlessly between each other, making this a half hour disco meditation track rather than an album. You can hear “The Chase”-era Moroder all over this thing, but this is (dare I say it) less cheesy, slicker, and with a contagious, restless percussive spinal chord stretching throughout. So much dark Italo-style disco is trampled by heinous vocals, and gleefully so, but Disco Club‘s vocal treatment is restrained, effectively lyricless, and often totally absent, excepting a mantric chorus of skittering “dee-dee-doo-doo”s. Everything is exactly where it should be, fleshed out in high-resolution with heart-racing textures, laser-sharp synth pads, and thrilling percussive ornamentation. There’s a huge, dark, beastly thing throbbing just beneath the surface that never quite rears its head. The tension is there, simmering, and in hopes of exorcising it all you can do is hit repeat again and again.

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