This is probably one of the more essential disco sets you can get. Larry Levan is one of the most famous DJs of all time. Together with Frankie Knuckles, with whom he used to spin at the Continental Baths, Levan is often seen as one of the progenitors of house music, creating a dub-influenced blend of disco, hip-hop, funk, and European synth pop during his infamous sets at the Paradise Garage. I’m not gonna wax nostalgic about Paradise Garage since I was never old enough to visit, safe to say that Levan’s tastes in music were eclectic enough to bring in crowds with a little more color than the superficial, sanitized Studio 54 set, keeping disco where it started: underground. Sadly, his profile waned after the Garage’s closure, though he still made contributions to the ever-evolving club culture, such as designing Ministry of Sound’s sound system in London.

Some of the best songs include “At Midnight” by T Connection, and “Get On The Funk Train,” by Munich Machine, which just sounds like sex (”OK, blow my whistle”).

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This is what I have of the Well Known Pleasures EP by VEGA, of Neon Indian fame (below).

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This is awesomely danceable, cheesy French electrohouse by one of the original masters, David Guetta. It’s awesome this album has gotten so commercial and it probably sticks out like a sore thumb on this site, but I’ve been so into “When Love Takes Over” ever since I first heard it two months ago. Then, driving in the car with a friend, I found myself strangely loving a new Black Eyed Peas song (?!?!) called I Gotta Feeling. Turns out it’s produced by Guetta. If this is the direction pop music is going, I’m all for it; at least it’s something danceable, and boy are the lyrics fun. I don’t know whether I should like the song “Sexy Bitch” as much as I do, but the lyric “She is nothing like a girl you’ve ever seen before, nothing you can compare to your neighborhood hoe/I’m trying find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful [Damn, girl!]/Damn You’s a sexy bitch, a sexy bitch…” well, I wonder if it’s kind of brilliant.

This album is fun, in part because it reminds me of summer, as I saw him at Electric Zoo at the tail end of one of my craziest summers ever. You will probably enjoy When Love Takes Over, Gettin’ Over, Sexy Bitch, I Gotta Feeling, I Want To Go Crazy. just don’t think too hard :)

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OK, so I am now the fourth (so far as I know) blog to post this, which means it’s up to you, dear reader, to spread this everywhere! With cover art like this, you know it’s gonna be some ultra-kick-ass retro 80s french house electro nu disco awesomeness, but you just don’t know the degree to which FM Attack has hit the nail on the head. Although there are only two songs from which to gauge his talent (check his myspace for more), Vancouver’s Shawn Ward has proven his place in a burgeoning scene that is often overcrowded with cheap imitators. The first track, Disco Attack is a nice, rhythmic deep housey electro track that recalls early 80s French clubs, while the second track, Take Me Away, is a much fresher and contemporary interpretation of retro electro sounds with a nu-disco sensibility brought to us by artists from the Valerie collective such as Anoraak, among others. Each track represents a pole on the range of electro music wonderland that FM Attack deftly traverses, though if I could I would encourage him to stick to innovating with more tracks such as Take Me Away for a more accessible full-length and stick to extended edits of tracks like Disco Attack for his live performances, which I eagerly await.

Two full tracks at 320 kbps, pick ‘em up down below!

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I always think I have all of my slow, cosmic disco music when lo and behold, I am missing another essential new album by a pioneer in the style. This is that album. Chuggy, stardust-sprinkled stoner disco (as I am now referring to this stuff), this will bring you down nice and easy and have you continuing to dance, even if you’re just swaying in bed. I highly recommend, if the cover doesn’t speak for the wonderfulness that lies inside…and beyond.

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NEVER STOP DANCING! That is tonight’s lesson. This is a really incredible album (and the only full length output) from Metro Area, a duo of disco/house DJ Morgan Geist (who’s from NJ, represent East Coast!) and some other guy who I’m sure is equally talented but whose name I’m too lazy to look up. This is another album where the cover says it all, but you have to listen to the album first. I would call it minimal house disco with (un)usual amounts of cowbell - not gratuitous amounts, but just the right amount to add a retro disco flair to an otherwise dancefloor happy minimal house composition. The whole album is like the memories you have after coming back from a long night at club, where you only remember the shimmering reflections of silhouettes dancing on lightly traced dancefloor. You’ll keep dancing in your dreams.

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