Daily Jam - A Whiter Shade of Pale

When you woke up this morning, did you want to listen to a cheesy, Italo-disco cover of Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale" featuring synth work from Georgio Moroder?  Of course you did.  Here's Moroder and Munich Machine with our Daily Jam.

Danalogue

Time to get those asses shaking with some analog electronic music from London producer and synth enthusiast Danalogue.  Check out the funky disco and techno sounds of "Sonic Hypnosis" below and download it here from Castles In Space.

YĪN YĪN

Get your butts moving with the latest single from Dutch psych band YĪN YĪN.  "Spirit Adapter" is a wonderful funky mix of Middle Eastern psych, disco, funk, Southeast Asian world music, and more more more.  Dig on the track below and download it here from Glitterbeat Records.

Daily Jam - Beams

Here's a little disco, funk, and soul from German composer and jazz pianist Dieter Reith.  Dig on the funky sounds of "Beams" below, our Daily Jam.

Daily Jam - The Breaks

Vacation last week combined with how busy work is becoming and just the summer in general has made it where i typically have no idea what day it is anymore.  But i just got off of a work Zoom meeting which means it's Wednesday.  Feels like a good time for some classic hip-hop from one of the originators.  Here's Kurtis Blow with "The Breaks," our Daily Jam.

Daily Jam - Space Caravan

A good way to find out that you probably have too many records is to come across one you didn't even realize you have.  Such is the case with "Discosmic Dance," a one-off release from Belgian disco group(?)/artist(?) Chris Craft.  I don't remember where i ever picked this one up.  Anyhoo, let's all dig on the groovy space rhythms of "Space Caravan" below, our Daily Jam...and then maybe go buy some more records.

The Diasonics

Bring on the library funk grooves with the latest release from Moscow group The Diasonics.  The "Ornithology" LP drops in August.  Pre-order it here from Record Kicks and listen to the Eastern disco bump of "Oriole" below.

Ciao Kennedy

Belgian instrumental band Ciao Kennedy makes a progressive kind of rock music featuring elements of jazz, hip-hop, disco, synth pop, and so much more.  The result can feel cosmic and cinematic like on the track "Limbo Rainbow."  Groove on it below and grab the new "Solarium" LP here from Sdban Records.

CDSM

Atlanta's CDSM (Celebrity Death Slot Machine) make something the band self-describes as "freak-out post punk" or "evil disco," a combination of electronica, post punk, death rock, and a whole lotta noise.  Check out "This Is My New Hell" below and pre-order the upcoming "Convertible Hearse" LP here from Mothland.

MERVE

MERVE is Merve Daşdemir, former member and singer of the excellent Dutch-Turkish psych and Anatolian rock band Altin Gün.  Her debut solo effort is the funky, disco-tinged synth pop nugget "Platonik."  Check it out below and download it here.

DARKSIDE

Nicolas Jaar's and Dave Harrington's electronic project DARKSIDE are back in February with new album "Nothing."  The duo have never made straightforward electronic music, and the new album feels no different with new single "S.N.C." grooving on elements of krautrock, disco, and some good, old-fashioned improvisation.  Give it a listen below and pre-order the LP here from Matador.

Daily Jam - West Side

It is hot has fuck here today, so I need something in my ears to reflect how melty everything feels. How about some dubby, balearic disco vibes from Swedish duo Studio. Here's "West Side," our Daily Jam.

Psychic Mirrors

Miami yacht rock band Psychic Mirrors just released a new version of their 2017 track "Charlene," updating it into the more full-bodied, funkier disco jam "Charlene II."  Shake and groove to it below and get the 12" single here from Amnisia.

Daily Jam (October Edition) - I'm Your Boogie Man

I've always liked the sample from John Carpenter's "Halloween" of all the bully kids saying "He's gonna get you" at the beginning of White Zombie's groovy cover of KC and The Sunshine Band's "I'm Your Boogie Man."  So, here it is.  Listen below, our Daily Jam.

Daily Jam - Dancing Is Dangerous

The same year that Sparks released their excellent "No. 1 in Heaven" LP, they also produced the debut and solo full-length album from American disco and electro-pop singer Noel.  1979 was pretty much a banner year for the brothers Mael.  Listen to "Dancing Is Dangerous" below.

Daily Jam - Young Girls

Recently i've been checking out the works of experimental New York composer Peter Gordon and fell into his weird and groovy work with the Love of Life Orchestra.  The band's 1980 album "Geneva" is a mix of new wave, electronics, disco, jazz, and more.  Dig on the sounds of "Young Girls" below, our Daily Jam.

Daily Jam - Atomic

Like a whole lot of folks I know, I used to be in a band. I think we were pretty good too, not world shattering by any means, but we were definitely getting better before things went south and we imploded. We played some shows, recorded an album, and filled our rehearsal space with so much cigarette smoke, it makes my lungs wheeze just thinking about it. But one of the things we never did, and I'm regretful for it to this day, was become part of a larger scene. We neglected to join a likeminded group of peers, freaks, and musicians with which to spread our sound and our art. And that sucks. Who knows what kind of mythmaking we could have enabled and been a part of? Maybe after disbanding, the stories and rumors would have remained, local pop culture lore spread by word of mouth and hazy memory.

But we didn’t.

All of this is probably my fault, as I can fall into my own idiosyncratic antisocial quirks every now and then, or maybe there just wasn’t a scene to fit into. We can’t all be the New York punk rock scene of the 1970's I guess.

Man, to have been around then and there to hang out at CBGB’s or Max’s Kansas City and see early performances by The Ramones or Talking Heads or Television or Richard Hell or Suicide or The Heartbreakers. To watch the scene unfold. To exist in the peripheries of punk rock Americana and experience the mythology firsthand. Each band as legendary as the last, sometimes before even taking the stage, and the stories, stories, stories, collections of truths, half-truths, and bullshit that somehow just all made sense. Patti Smith’s sexuality or Dee Dee turning tricks or Debbie Harry having narrowly avoided being murdered by notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, the mythmaking was alive and pulsing, along with bass lines and amplifiers and heartbeats rattled by too much cocaine.

Where was all this shit in Austin 20 years ago? We should have been playing shows with a host of other weirdos, writing songs together, popping pills, drinking whiskey and cheap beer, and writing our own histories, mythic art rock deities to be remembered forever by other weirdos.

But we didn’t...

...which brings me to Blondie, the hippest punk/new wave/disco hybrid act to have ever graced the stage and our home stereos, and their disco pop banger “Atomic.”

I don’t really have any more to add here, so let’s just listen to the song and remember how fucking cool Debbie Harry and the band were.

Still are.

Daily Jam - Higher

A while back, when i used to write for now defunct online magazine, I began a confessional column, a safe space if you will for some of my fellow contributors and myself to open up and get some things off of our chests, namely the various detritus of pop culture that despite all odds and our own better judgement remain embarrassingly important and beloved to us. Things like Xanadu or Baltimora, projects or artists who are objectively lame or bad, but for some reason or another (almost always nostalgia) still hit that sweet, sweet spot. These are our totems of humility.

This is not a confession, though maybe it should be.

I will solidly but humbly agree with anyone who argues that Italo Disco is one of the worst and dumbest genres of music ever created. I will cede you that. Absolutely, the genre can be derivative and often achingly devoid of any substance whatsoever. It can be garish, a collection of fluffy extended 12” mixes justified by so much cocaine. And it can certainly be cringe-worthy, a sonic embarrassment, a style of music created by people who never got the memo that disco was dead.

But for some reason, I fucking love it.

I love the straightforwardness of it all, the complete lack of irony, the sincerity, and the dedication to just dancing and having fun. Maybe it’s art without subtext, but so what? Naturally I became obsessed with Italian singer Vivien Vee’s 1983 disco jam “Higher” when I heard it for the first time a few years ago. It has occupied headspace and playlist alike ever since.

There’s really not a whole lot to say about the song. It’s cheesy. It sounds like it was recorded years before it actually was. It was a modest hit in Italy. And it was produced by, and features keyboards from Goblin’s Claudio Simonetti.

And it’s awesome. Never forget that it’s awesome.

Listen below, our Daily Jam.

Daily Jam - Phantom Pt. II

Me: I can’t stop listening to this song.

Everybody else: Why?

Me: It’s just so damn cool and fun, like some kind of late-70’s/early-80’s roller-disco revival.

Everybody else: Why is that cool?

Me: It just is! Shut up!

Having had the above conversation on more than one occasion with different people, friends and colleagues alike, I guess I may come off as a little defensive in my absolute adoration of the dance song “Phantom Pt. II” from French electronic duo Justice’s 2007 album †, more phonetically known as Cross. Beginning with a warped Goblin sample, the track powers through three minutes of prog and pop indebted, cosmic disco funk. Your toe may tap. Your head may bob. Your ass may shake. There is nothing you can do.

There is certainly a nostalgia-grabbing aesthetic to the song, a neon-lit, cocaine-fueled, Technicolor daydream, discoballs, headbands, and sweat. And it’s probably that very nostalgia and the inner Xanadu fan within me that latched on to this, harkening and recalling a more innocent time when my mixtapes could consist of Olivia Newton John, Weird Al, and “Snoopy Vs. the Red Baron.” It sounds like the dying days of disco, like the very early days of my childhood when those grooves were still creeping through the cultural ether, appearing in unhip TV shows and the stereo systems of small town roller rinks, even though the expiration date had long since passed. Everything old is new again. These are the youthful sonic relics restructured and repurposed for the modern era, calling young and old alike to the dance floor. But more than anything else, “Phantom Pt. II” is just a fun and danceable pop song.

Everybody else: Why is that cool?

Me: It doesn’t matter.

Listen below, our Daily Jam.

Justice

French electronic duo Justice are back this April with all the roller boogie beats and grooves you can handle with new album "Hyperdrama."  And on new track "One Night/All Night," Tame Impala is along for the ride...which fits the vibe of the proceedings perfectly.  Dig on the song below and pre-order the new LP here from Ed Banger Records and Because Music.