Strut, Disco

So this week saw the release of this great new edition of Disco Not Disco compilation, part of the series first released by Strut records back in the early '00s, that puts together some of the amazing dance music of the late-70s/early-80s. Essentially the music is a fusion of styles that were bubbling along in the underground and in mainstream music - much of what's on here is dance music drawing from disco, but the bands were also part of the punk and post-punk scenes, New York's No-Wave scene and even jazz.

Basically everything on here is an underground classic, all of which is dance-able, like the classic pop-funk of James White & The Blacks "Contort Yourself", presented here in remixed form by August Darnell, the proto-techno-electro track "Sharevari" by A Number Of Names, "Silent Street/Silent Dub" by Maximum Joy, as well as tracks by Konk, Delta 5, Shriekback, Gina X, Material, Quando Quango, Six Sed Red, and more. Unfortunately I don't have a downloadable song to put up with this post, but I do have a handful of cool videos to go with this. Check out this clip from Detroit's 'The Scene' dance-show (that I posted about a while back), featuring "Sharevari", Liaisons Dangereuses "Los Niños Del Parque", and Gina X's crazy "No GDM".

Strut Records actually closed down a few years back, but our friends at !K7 have resurrected them as a sub-label, and they'll be putting out some more sick compilations of post-disco stuff, so stay tuned on that front. You can purchase Disco Not Disco at your favorite local retailer, or buy it from Amazon or download from iTunes.

The CD comes with excellent, very extensive liner notes from Bill Brewster, author of Last Night A DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey, an essential read for those of you who want to learn a little bit more about dance music. I cannot recommend this compilation enough for those folks who are getting into dance music now, and want to hear some of the influential songs of this period.