Out to Lunch

Italo Space disco

I can’t help myself. I like Space and Italo Disco. I recently bought me some vinyl with rare club classics as a kind of late X-mas gift. These club tracks are really awesome and so rare. I found a cheap way to rip vinyl but it's still at a low bitrate. I simply have to share them. Nevertheless it still sounds great.

To begin with, for starters a couple of tracks by Cerrone. These aren’t that rare but Je Suis Music and You Are The One are among my most favourite dance tracks. I just found out that Armand Van Helden made a remix of it a couple of years ago and it's simply brilliant.

You Are the One is a great disco song, featuring as ever a fantastic Jocelyn Brown on vocals. What is special about this song is the fact that the band Toto performes on it. Love In C Minor is his 1977 debut.

Cerrone – Love In C Minor
Cerrone – Take Me
Cerrone feat. Jocelyn Brown + Toto - You Are The One
Cerrone – Je Suis Music (Armand Van Helden remix 2005)

Next we’re off to outer space with a band which is simply called… Space. Magic Fly by the French band Space is one of those few early synthpop songs that turned into a true icon of electronic dance music. Others are Popcorn, Autobahn, Moskow Disko,…
Space were fronted by Didier Marouani who penned Magic Fly way back in 1977, just one year after the huge success of Jean Michel Jarre’s Oxygene.
Together with Ze Germans, the French were at the forefront of electronic dance music.
The strong cultural relations between all the countries with native French speakers resulted in a wave of electro bands in places like Belgium and Quebec. That’s how a year later, the band Kebekelektrik came up with a cover of Magic Fly. Tom Moulton made a mix of it, Pat Deserio produced it and the man behind all of this was nobody less than Gino Soccio, the great, late disco producer.

I don't know which one of the two is the best version. I like them both.

Space – Magic Fly 1977
Space – Tango In Space
Kebekelektrik – Magic Fly (Tom Moulton mix) (12 inch 1978)
Kebekelektrik – War Dance

More favourites and pleasant discoveries. I found another lost track. Nights Of Arabia was on my list of records that I simply had to have before I die or got to old to step onto a dancefloor. Task accomplished.

Miro Miroe’s Night Of Arabia is true classic but o so rare. I found a copy but it's not an original one. Doesn’t matter, as long as I can listen to the music, I’m happy! And it wasn’t that expensive either.
ET is the other one I was looking for. I didn’t like the movie as a kid but there was a song back then that was catchy as hell. This is the one. The others are classics as well, apparently, but I didn’t know them yet.

Miro Miroe – Nights Of Arabia (12 inch 1982)
Donna Rhodes - Extra Terrestrial (ET) (1982)

Cat Gang – Locomotive Breath
Check Up Twins – Sexy Teacher (1985)
Digital Mind – Countdown (1985)

Next something from Giorgio Moroder and music that is Moroder related but with less electronics. Trax were Pete Bellotte (who worked with Giorgio Moroder) and Keith Forsey. This track is from the 1978 album Dancing In The Street. Not all the tracks are great, a bit of a bummer this one.

Munich Machine – In Love With Love (1978 Giorgio Moroder)
Trax – Crusader (1978)

The next ones should be filed as rare grooves but they’re also funky disco. Except Something Freaky which is one of the best all time favourite slow jams. Together with King Heroine by the JB’s. It’s a funny notion that Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg got filthy rich by sampling this gay disco.

Leon Haywood – Don’t Push It Don’t Force It
Leon Haywood – I Wanna Do Something Freaky Tonight (instr.)
T-Connection – Let Yourself Go (1977)

And more rare 80's Italo disco.

Stopp – I’m Hungry
Sun La Shan – Catch
The Hills Of Kat Mandu – Tantra
Night Moves - Transdance
Sheila B Devotion – Love me baby (1977)

I like too end this post with some rare live footage of a Belgian new wave band. One of the best in those days. Lavvi Ebbel. A pity that they only lasted very shortly. An ill that many early Belgian bands suffered from, because of acute lack of success.

Lavvi Ebbel – Telepatia (live)