padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
I'll be back later if I can. this tbh isn't even scratching the surface.

that's why I always say this era is the best. a thousand amazing tracks, usually in different and often strange ways, and from unexpected sources.
 

version

Well-known member
I reckon a fair number of you might know this one. huge Funhouse tune, as well as Garage etc. this cat played with Ian Dury, so he was involved with some jams.

I like the way it alternates between dark electro vibe (bit bladerunner avant la lettre) and a more hopeful mechanical disco vamp

puts me in mind of this stone cold classic as well, they were truly a force to be reckoned with in their early days

John Carpenter eat your heart out.
 

Client Eastwood

Well-known member
This a track was on a mostly slow to mid tempo soul album.

The kind of track where the dancers in the crowd would take their positions. A lot of these dancers were making the transition from dancing to jazz/rare groove which was huge around the same time and could often be heard on the same night.

Ingram - DJs Delight

 

the ig

Well-known member
yeah when i hear 'post-disco' think of more new-wavey things like esg, acr, belgian bands like allez allez 1st of all but whatevs, saw serious intention posted so went with that, it's so open and fecund a pop period anyway, i can imagine quite a lot of these records working across range of sites: mudd club to p garage to funhouse to danceteria.

at the same time underground consolidation and concentration as producers/djs working with bequeaths of disco era - remix/edit, the 12" single - explore specific sonics of club music, which means more independence from pop mainstream.

anyway from slippery, spidery manc disco-dub-not-disco:

...to a drowning deep nyc disco dubout:
(carol williams - can't get away from your love, won't open out but it's a beaut)


there lots of work on voice with effects etc, as padraig said, but i also like how the space opened up by producers allows for more songful, soulful stuff too:

(big p garage tune)

rubbery bass, get all sticky caught up in it, too delicious...
i go to disco for bass rather than p-funk or whathavu. esp'y this period: dancefloor demands + live bands + producer savvy means it's KING in that period

francois & larry discodub symphony (if u feel like dyin)
great anthemic-regretful living-for-the-weekend lyrics, collaring diva vocals (you comin out too!) etc..


and then that other strand, crispy kashif-prod boogie, all twisty earworm riffs and steadying synth bass, which works fab as airy kissfm-style radiopop, as well as being eminently dancefloor ready:


could fucking go on forever..
 
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the ig

Well-known member
well there ya go, kevorkian hard driving 'lectroid dub for d train:


fucking SLAPS!

another mega fave prelude synthdisco raveup, pitches up great to about +4:


another fk masterpiece, & fav nick straker bit for me:


...veritable disco benediction, so shiny UP but so right! carries you along entirely, those wistful descending synth lines later on the crucial touch, & even the sax works!
 
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padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
producers/djs working with bequeaths of disco era - remix/edit, the 12" single - explore specific sonics of club music
this is not a bad nutshell summation of the technical-philosophical shift from disco to "post-disco"

tho I would disagree with "more independence from pop mainstream"

rather if anything I think there is a broadening of the "pop mainstream" to include multiple new specific sonic elements and structures

ultimately the goal of virtually all these records was to be pop records

outside of rare exceptions like the most abrasive/contrarian ends of disco not disco
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
incidentally my favorite ACR record is definitely this, an all-time fave. it properly kicks in about 30 seconds in.

high level funk not funk

with their cover of "Shack Up" running a reasonably close second

ACR in their early years being one of the very few avant funk outfits to truly cash in on the promise of that premise

and, as we've talked about elsewhere, diminishing returns later on as they increasingly became basically just an actual Level 42
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
these next couple records I have definitely posted and talked about before on dissensus (and elsewhere)

I toss around the word "favorite" probably too much, but this one is fr in my personal all-time Top 10

Shaun Ryder supposedly thinks it's the best thing Factory ever put out and I'm inclined to agree with him

Hook/Sumner on production again in their Be Music guise. basically everything good about the magical pre-house days of the Hacienda.

it has a pretty amazing backstory too, which if you don't know I recommend looking up

and then THIS is a Cabaret Voltaire one-off side project with vocals by none other than the semi-mythical Cindy Ecstasy of Soft Cell fame
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
the Paradise Garage has to reign supreme, but I sometimes think I would've like to go the Hacienda more in their respective heydays

undoubtedly the latter doesn't exist without the NY club scene (and later on, Chicago) but it's also weirder

like the genius of Levan etc is fusing records from many different genres or microgenres or particular sounds into one aesthetic

whereas a lot of Hacienda records already don't fit into any particular aesthetic

there are pianos, electro sounds, post-post-punk choppiness, whatever kitchen sink nonsense tossed in

it doesn't always work but when it does it's ace
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
obscure slow disco burner that has become a big record for the kind of modern DJs into that kind of thing the last few years
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
another one people might already know

one of those impossible seeming records that could only have come out of the impossibly cool uptown/downtown early 80s NYC scene

but also exists completely out of space and time, or in its own space-time moment

artwork and "production" (tho I think that means more like coordination than how'd we usually understand in a rap sense) by Jean-Michel Basquiat
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
more impossibly cool English ahead of it's time (fucking 1981!!) wot do u call it biz, huge Garage record apparently

as one discogs review - that has always stuck with me - puts it "Brideshead Revisited dandies playing proto-house"

or I guess you'd more properly call the dub mix proto-proto-house

tbh I like the disaffected rapping. I have a soft spot for non-rappers rapping in the post-disco era, as it's not very different from how actual rappers were rapping.

also clock how heavy the Latin influences were on weird British club records of the era
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
one for craner

pretty much perfect French disco-boogie on the classy, smooth, uplifting (those keys) end of that spectrum

cocktail dresses, Biggie rapping about Super Nintendo Sega Genesis, good skin, aspiration
 
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