Collection: Disco/Funk/Soul

After over 40 years and with great pride we bring to light in the formidable Maxi 45 single format another great little gem hidden in the vast panorama of Italian disco. Author, painter, poet and all-round musician, Luciano Angeleri collaborated on the project with enthusiasm and exceptional enthusiasm. With his inimitable humor he gave us many laughs and beautiful reflections on an unparalleled golden age. Thank you so much Luciano! The Pink Colored Vinyl in Limited Edition, in addition to the two hits “Un’ Estate di Sesso” and “Donna”, offers two modern versions on the B-Side: Lance with a jaunty Re-Edit and our Marta Paradise with a real King -Work with a retro futuristic flavour. May the Italian Summer be with you…

Suburbs of Milan, 80s, Milano da Bere. An astronaut, a paparazzi, a dirty cop and a private investigator sip Punt and Mes and discuss the latest Versace show. “Star Italiana” wants to represent the Italian imagination of the 80s, an era lived at the top, full of charm, hedonism and contradiction. An indelible period stuck between social revolution and technological transformation, lunar journeys, cold war and electronic batteries 808. Thanks to the the songs on this album, the authors deal with themes such as passion (“Marlboro Light”), politics (“Polizei”), culture (“Shooting Star”) and social affairs (“Paparazzi”), all seasoned by a healthy dose of irony personified by the characters photographed on the front cover. It’s music characterized by lively rhythms, pulsating synthesizers, pounding melodies, morning-after drums, all shaping the characteristic sound of the era: ITALO DISCO.

MÚSICA PARA BOLICHE takes us to Argentina. Along the journey, we will discover that Maradona is not the only thing we have in common with our cousins across the ocean. Let’s dive into the 1980s Buenos Aires scene, a time straddling dictatorship and disco music, in search of dusty gems forgot-ten even in their homeland. The EP contains four tracks spanning Italo, electro, and proto-house, carefully selected by Jack Bulgaro, restored, and edited by DJs from Italy and Argentina.

BPlan & Fab_o's sixth release on their label delivers serious flavor with a four-track EP also featuring Raregems. On the A-side there are two dancefloor killers from BPlan & Fab_o, showing off a strong African rhythm and a groovy number with disco horns - all the elements to light a dancefloor on fire. On the flip side, Raregems contribute two slow and sexy tracks from their archive, offering rare gems indeed. With each track bringing its own unique flavour, this EP is a fantastic addition to the series.

Rome's contemporary jazz maestro Stefano De Santis is back with his 'New Beginning' EP on the esteemed Quattro Bambole Music. Across four stunning tracks, Stefano's musicianship shines as he explores jazz-infused broken beat, boogie, deep house and lo-fi hip-hop. Highlights come thick and fast and include the mellow jazz landscapes of 'Roy,' the lush blend of slow-motion house and broken beats on 'Lie#3', the emotive, piano-driven 'Paths' and the 80s boogie vibe of 'Tokyo 80.' UK producer Sean McCabe mastered the EP but also delivers a deep house dub of 'Lie#3.'

Chicago's disco-house generator Rahaan Young goes a tad Balearic with 'My Girl Is Better', an exemplar of the artist's much-honoured and much-emulated skill at disco editing. The star track on this record is itself a version of Talking Heads' 'Girlfriend Is Better', which comes backed by an impressively isolated dub version on the B-side, which the original Talking Heads number itself did not come accompanied by. Rahaan's version fattens, monoises and clarifies the beat, adding little more than a DJ edit's worth of space to mix things; the dub version is only subtly dissimilar, its main feature being its echoic breakdowns and word painting.

PPU is one of your favourite labels when it comes to dusty and lo-fi soul and related sounds. Now the DC-based crew delivers another gem with Grand Hotel, a collection of ten rare tracks from Estonian funk legend Uku Kuut, who they have released several times before now. The instrumental album traces Kuut's journey through the Soviet Union, Sweden, Los Angeles, and Estonia and is a window into his excellently eclectic style. Highlights include his first home recording from 1982 and a track produced in Herbie Hancock's studio. After more than 30 years of travelling across borders, these precious masters have found a permanent home and means that Grand Hotel is a fine tribute to Kuut's international influences.

Maledetta Discoteca proudly announces the birth of their first daughter LA SIRENETTA (*The mermaid) and the release of her first record! An hommage to the Italian Afro scene of the late 80s, La Sirenetta is a sub-label born to take World Music to the next level for the contemporary Dancing Club Scene. We aim at digging, selecting and editing obscure bangers from our analogue record collections, travelling from Martinique to Ivory Coast, from Nigeria to Haiti, and giving them back to deejays and dancefloors in high-quality, highly collectable, 12” releases.

Jéroboam, also known in the streets of Paris and Montreuil as Echoes Of, is celebrating Britfunk and the rich musical heritage of Greater London, reflecting their deep appreciation for the iconic Britfunk sound. After several successful collaborations celebrating the genre with the label at the infamous New Morning venue in Paris, Jéroboam has crafted two brilliant compositions for this EP.

Italian twosome Gino and Dino (that's G&D to you and me) have released some of the most on-point and well-crafted re-edits of recent times. Their EPs are always worth a look, and this one - the first of two featuring other editors alongside the popular duo - is no exception. They begin on side A with 'PeeGee870', a fine version of a low-slung, synth-sporting Italian disco chugger from (we think) the turn of the 1980s, before moving on to the eyes closed disco bliss of 'understanding', where heady lead vocals and sweeping orchestration catches the ear. Over on side B, the previous unheard G.Bros and In.an offer up their 'Balearic' edit of 'Polpette', joining the dots between laidback, loved-up disco, quirky Balearic colour and huggable dancefloor lusciousness.

Milo Johnson AKA DJ Nature is not a newcomer to the re-edit scene - he's been serving up reworks, bootlegs and floor-focused DJ tools for decades - but he has become more prominent in recent years, thanks in no small part to the efforts of edit specialists Hot Biscuit Recordings. Here he delivers the second part of his Versions project, offering up six more revisions stretched across two slabs of wax. Check first the lightly dubbed-out, string-laden jazz-funk shuffle of 'Felix', before admiring the summery South American jazz-fusion brilliance of 'Caso De Amor de Brasileiro' and the low-slung funk-goes-jazz-dance headiness of 'Steppin'. His love of low-slung, dub-flecked workouts returns on EP highlight 'Tarzoon March', before he reaches for the lasers on disco-funk jam 'Disco Queen' and successfully tampers with a jazzy deep disco number on 'Have Mercy'.

Hot Biscuit Recordings' has spent the last couple of years delivering killer re-edit EPs, mostly from veteran talents including Rahaan and the Idjut Boys. For this 12", they've recruited another long-established re-editor, Brooklyn-based Japanese-American producer (and East Village Edits main man) DJ Monchan. There is of course a big fat slice of heavily orchestrated disco on show - B-side 'Finally', which seemingly extends and rearranges Steve Bendner's 1977 version of 'The Final Thing' - but it's A-side 'Silent Dub' that hits home hardest. It's sees the Dailysession Records founder turn his attention to a sparse, spaced-out synth-pop record of (we think) the 1980s, re-imagining it as deliciously deep and dubby house record full of trippy effects, echoing vocal snippets and delay-laden percussive elements.