Related: 1978 music – François Kevorkian – Euro disco – French music

CD availability: Jumpin’ vol.2

Disco Circus (1978) – Martin Circus

Released as an album and a twelve inch single on the New York Prelude record label, Disco Circus by French outfit Martin Circus which first came to my attention as a favourite of the Detroit techno artists such as Juan Atkins and Derrick May (who listed it as his top 5 record in the late eighties). It is an example of the cross-fertilization of the European and North American disco markets of the late 1970s. Other examples of which are Orlando Riva Sound‘s Moon Boots single which was released on the American imprint Salsoul records

The Drift (2006) – Scott Walker
[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

[i]f you are a fan of Diamanda Galas (who is about the only person who can compare in terms of anguish and horror and pain [apart from maybe Arthur Russell]), Lydia Lunch, later Marc Almond, or dark, slow goth music full of tortured anguish, then you stand a good chance of liking this. –[euchrid] (UK) for Amazon.co.uk

There is a 10 minute Scott Walker documentary at Youtube. Phinn on Scott.

Scott Walker is the stage name of American born singer-songwriter Noel Scott Engel. Born in January 1943 in Hamilton, Ohio, he was named after his father. Walker has long resided in England.

Walker’s own original songs of this period (emerging solo work) are a late, last flowering of a dark Romanticism tinged with Surrealism and Existential angst. They are influenced by Jacques Brel and in some inchoate way, the writing of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus and early twentieth century European thought, poetry, art and music (despite the fact that by then Existentialism was waning as a philosophical and literary fashion). Walker explored European musical roots while paradoxically expressing his own American experience and alienation. He was also inching to a new maturity as a recording artist. This would bear incredible fruit with his marvellous country recordings in the early seventies.–http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Walker_%28singer%29

Digression: “Starsailor” by Tim Buckley on Youtube. My fave Tim Buckley song (and the only one I own) is “Sweet Surrender” (taken from the album Greetings From L.A. (1972)). I have it on the best compilation of the 2000s: Underground Moderne.

Screen shot from Space is the Place. In this particular scene in a desert, Sun Ra plays a card game called “The End of the World,” with the Overseer (Ray Johnson), who is dressed in white and drives a white Cadillac. Sun Ra pulls out a spaceship card and the Arkestra play the song “Calling Planet Earth” as their spaceship lands in Oakland, CA.

Some Sun Ra You Tube for you and some house cleaning on the Wackies and Kodwo Eshun pages.

More on the second Ra clip:

Don Letts directed this [Brother from another Planet (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4] beautiful and hilarious film about one of the truly great eccentric geniuses of music – Sun Ra. It was the third documentary we’ve made for the BBC series Originals – previously we profiled Robert Wyatt and Gil Scott-Heron.

Jez Nelson – who produced the programme – has had a long fascination with Ra since meeting him in 1990.

We’re currently in production with the next in the Originals series – a film about P-Funk legend George Clinton.

The show was broadcast on Friday October 28, 2005 at 9pm on BBC4. —Somethinelse.com

The year is 1979, and five young guys are free-flow jamming, in a Hispanic neighbourhood in downtown Manhattan, N.Y.C. The vocalist of this group is Salvatore Principato. By day, he works in a toy store (with Kim Gordon). By night, he‘s dropping his vocal inflections onto the rhythms of his group, who go by the name Liquid Liquid. Their own brand of ‘body music’ began to be heard not only alongside bands such as Suicide and ESG, but also in the pioneering sets of DJ’s like Afrika Bambaataa and Larry Levan. And without changing tack for new audiences, the band played on.
»When you go into the production stage of it, that’s when you think of ‘who is it that is gonna possibly care about this and how should I present it to them?’ But the original spark of inspiration, your groove or your melody or your catchy vocal line, it’s got to be just for you or the one you love.« —RedBullMusicAcademy

Sal Principato: »Alright, this video actually was done in 1927 by an animator called Oskar Fischinger and I don’t know if you know the history of animation. He was the guy behind the concept of ‘Fantasia’. [Walt] Disney’s ‘Fantasia’ and this video is called ‘When The World Got Drunk’. One of the guys from Liquid Liquid went out to L.A., California, to talk to his widow, like his 100 years old widow, to get the permission to use this for ‘Cavern’. She gave us [the permission], so it’s all straight up. And we are streaming it off the web, that’s why the sound and everything is a little twisted.«

Fischinger at YouTube.

Soul Jazz presents: Give Me Your Love (2006) – Sisters Love
[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Tommy’s disco delivery blog features audio of this new Soul Jazz compilation and good commentary:

The people at Soul Jazz Records have done it again. After having their Tom Moulton Mix compilation on my changer constantly for several months, they release this collection compiling many of the singles released by The Sisters Love (mostly on A&M and Motown from 1968-1973). So far, this is the first time any of their material has been assembled together in one place, let alone on CD.. After hearing about them on various forums, but never actually hearing them, I decided to take a chance and buy this thing. So far, the featured track “Give Me Your Love” from 1973 has become one of my absolute favourite proto-disco tracks ever. —Tommy at discodelivery blog [Oct 2006]