Disco in the New Millennium

Disco in the New Millennium?

Yep we're still out there.   We're still listening to the music you blew up in Comiskey Park, some of us never stopped.   Some of us progressed through the years into Hi-NRG, Trance, Techno, Rave, Goa.  Some went into World Music and discovered the "Speed Guitar" sounds of West African Music in Souskous, Zouk and that of Trindad's Carnival's Soca music.

I've done them all, and I do them all, probably on a daily basis.

There's also a significant amount of Classical music slipped in there and that's how I got my start.  More specifically on the BBC World Service, every evening on Shortwave.  5610KHz Caribbean Relay.  CBC on 9625KHZ out of Sackville NB.   I don't have to go through all that rot to listen to Classical although I still listen to both BBC and CBC on a daily basis in South Florida via the Net or Sirius Radio.  

I'd learned my English from BBC at the age of 2 1/2 as well as my taste for music was carved into my brains at that age.   I listened to Classical when everyone else was listening to the British Invasion.  I had my own.

After I started into High School, I discovered more contemporary forms of music, but they all had something in common, a lush orchestral sound - I still couldn't STAND rock music, but my black friends in High School turned me onto Soul, RnB and Disco.

As Disco was still yet to put on its Polyester suit and dance on that lighted floor in Manhattan, the music hadn't yet gotten over commercialized into formula and "Cheese".  There was still this sound from the music that was only done within a large acoustical orchestra with only a bit of synthesizers in the background for spice.

I still listen to that today when I'm not listening to a European DJ spinning Trance at 130BPM.

Mostly the Disco I remember are the European Sounds of Cerrone and Alec R Constantinos.  Love and Kisses, that sort of thing.  These tracks were so lush that you could practically build a house on the orchestrations.  

Hmmm, House Music... Yeah I do that too... I even DJed for an eyeblink ...

So basically its extremely rare that music from the Disco Years escaped my notice - Dance Music for me is anything from 1973 and Soul Makossa to today and Armin van Buuren. 

I started listening to a webcaster as a whim.  There's Diva Disco and Diva Funk and what shocked me was they play the music that I remember that WCAU played in Philadelphia when they were one of the powerhouses of the format in the 70s.  Wonderfully obscure tracks that you only heard once and could never find again. 

So last night when I walked in from a Photo Op with the Pink Truck for Breast Cancer Awareness, warm from the South Florida Sun, I heard this track that grabbed my attention.  As if to say it went inside my head and did what every good dance track does - rolled around and stopped me from doing anything until it was quite over.  I walked over to the Squeezebox and saw that track name - and immediately wrote it down.


Alec R. Constantinos - Synergy

What?  A Disco Track from an artist that I Know very well that I had never heard before?  Click that link above and you'll see what I mean...  Something that is lush, has the same contra-puntal interwoven melodies in it like a Bach orchestral piece but was written in 1979?  And I had never heard it but once before? 

Dude, I'm there!

Turning up the music, I stood under the fan telling Kevin that had he not been there, the windows would be rattling.  The dog left the room and all the sudden the violins, flutes, and trumpets playing at 110 BPM were accompanied by a raucous Orange Wing Amazon.

Heaven.

Ok so thanks to Diva Disco, I'm stuck again on a Disco Groove.   It's before 8 in the morning, I hope I'll get out from under the headphones before the phone starts ringing at 9am but until then, I'm queuing up next a Cerrone track - Love in C Minor...