Mixtape Week: Monday

It's the first instalment in our week of mixtapes and today's one is a belter, taking in some discoid delights from the likes of Studio, Black Devil Disco Club, Chromeo and Talking Heads, among others.


YER MAM!'S MIXTAPE WEEK: MONDAY

1. Studio - Life's A Beach! (Todd Terje's Beach House Miks) (The better of the two 'Life's A Beach!' remixes, in my opinion, is this dubby, blissful slo-mo disco do-over from Terje. He amps up the tempo ever-so-slightly from the original and adds a bassline found in the drawer marked "Just won't quit". Superb.)
2. Bjorn Torske - God Kveld (More beautiful Norwegian disco from the Bergen-based legend. Similar in style and form to recent works by Reverso 68, but it's a sound that never gets old. At least it hasn't yet anyway.)
3. Special Touch - Garden Of Life (Shuffling, very smooth UK soul bomb from the early 90s, recently resurrected on Sonar Kollektiv's Computer Incarnations For World Peace compilation. A lost classic.)
4. The The - Giant (Pilooski Edit) (The ever-reliable Pilooski takes The The's original (from Soul Mining) and, well, doesn't really do much at all to it. It's all about the little touches like the way he piles a bit more reverb on the drums and adds all sorts of little effects on the coda, while stripping away the "Yeah, yeah, yeah"'s. Nice work if you can get it.)
5. Black Devil Disco Club - The Devil In Us (Why I managed to forget about 28 After when I came to compile my albums of the year list last year is beyond me, as it's one of the 2006 albums that I still give a regular spin to. I'm going to see Bernard Fevre in action in a couple of weeks, so here's my favourite off that album as a primer.)
6. Andre Cymone - The Dance Electric (Cymone was Prince's sort-of adopted brother (Prince lived with Cymone's family after leaving his own home as a teen) and he played bass in Prince's touring band in the early days. Prince also wrote and produced this, Cymone's only real hit. Cymone sounds a lot like Prince. Coattail-riding has never sounded so funky.)
7. Chromeo - Bonafied Lovin' (Tough Guys) (Speaking of Prince, the music world's most blatant Prince fetishists, Chromeo are back with a new album that doesn't actually make me want to chop off my ears. Fancy Footwork is, in fact, a truly joyous retro-pop marvel and this is one of the most addictive cuts from it. Christ, Chromeo got really good all of a sudden.)
8. Matthew Dear - Don And Sherri (Dear has gone all tech-soul on his new album under his own name, Asa Breed and it's a serious contender for album of the year. The pure pop of 'Don And Sherri' is just one of the reasons why.)
9. Loose Joints - Is It All Over My Face? (Larry Levan Remix) (One of the most fun, funky tracks to come out of the underground disco scene of the late 70s/early 80s gets a subtle rework from the don of that era. Pure ecstasy.)
10. Was (Not Was) - Out Come The Freaks (A good few years before 'Walk The Dinosaur' made them a household name the world over, they released this avant-garde disco classic on Ze Records. Still as strange and exotic now as it was in 1981.)
11. Jorge Ben - Taj Mahal (Samba-disco-funk from Mr. Ben. Recommended if you like... fun, dancing, good times.)
12. The Lafayette Afro Rock Band - I Love Music (Proto-disco funk from the early-70s. Features one of the most hard-driving bass and piano combos I've ever heard. It nearly gave me a panic attack when I first heard it, it's that fucking good.)
13. Talking Heads - Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On) (What can you say? Perfect afro-beat influenced new wave disco from the greatest band ever to walk the earth. Sounds great opening that new Back To Mine mix from Royksopp too.)

Monday's mixtape, ripped, zipped and Gigasized (new link!)