Soft Focus in Toronto at L'Ouvrier

Mark Dufort and I are launching a new monthly in a couple of weeks at notable Dundas St West nosh spot L'Ouvrier.  Click through the image for Facebook RSVP.

Vile Bodies

Blow, cat, blow

Rod Start It All Over Again

Robert Palmer Looking For Clues

Rod's Shake It Up has long been a gold-plated standard in Italo productions for me, but damn if the album opener Start It All Over Again doesn't deserve love, too.  Opening with a great guitar riff that's matched with some more jazzy instrumentation (that organ!), trad-disco flourishes and Philly sounding brass, it sashays into the exuberant territory of Kid Creole & The Coconuts (nee August Darnell), amounting to a deeply satisfying way to start a hidden gem of a record.  The brief xylophone lead reminds me of the lead that shows up towards the end in Robert Palmer's anxious new-wave workout Looking for Clues.  So there you go...

I was sure that I had posted Rod's Shake It Up, but I've spent a number of years suffering from the petty DJ affliction of claiming songs for one's own and hoarding them.  Sort of foolish in the age of musical abundance.  Never mind that when I DJed with Vancouver's (super-skilled, really nice) Kutcorners at Blue Dog in Montreal a while back, it was a prominent set-piece...  The song is a lot more well known than I had imagined.

After much digging, I've got a lengthy post coming up this week on Anthony Malloy, of Anthony & The Camp, who deserves far more attention for his contribution to house music than simply being the target of some sticky-fingered lifting by Tensnake. (Much love to Coma Cat, though).

No One Ever Tells You What It Costs

Melba Moore It's a Peach Melba (Promised Land re-edit)

Here's a couple-of-years-old classic re-edit of Melba Moore's 1977 song Promised Land, the second white label release from the mysterious Dutch label Moxie. The b-side on this is an equally stomping, mid-tempo edit of The Inner City Jam Band's What I Did For Love which I'll include on an upcoming mix. (The organ vamping throughout brings it to another level). Beg, borrow or steal - just acquire this somehow.

Optimum Configuration

Editude City Tell Me (...That You Loft Me Edit)

...And make it count.

Faze Action & The Intergalactic Dancefloor

Faze Action Good Lovin' (Special Disco Mix)

Faze Action Starship
Cerrone Supernature

Robin Lee and Simon Lee are two UK brothers who previously produced the sort of boutique hotel lobby music that was so ubiquitious in the first half of this decade. (Think Sounds from the Verve Hi-Fi Remixed.) If you can imagine the sort of music that's playing at a Celebration Brasilia! cocktail at some multimedia festival in the lounge while a quick-cut film of Pele playing football and people dancing on beaches is projected on to various surfaces around the bar, well, yeah, that'd be what they specialize in. In the last couple of years, that music has trickled down to the soundalike studios of television score composers, and the Italo revival and disco redux has gained speed, compelling once mighty titans of to look deep within their souls, fire their Brazilian percussionist, and create something a little more of the moment. Thank God.

Which is what has happened in the last couple of years, with 2009's Stratus Energy, Faze Action has entered a more appealing place - a 4/4 soundscape full of jet-propulsion beats, multi-layered strings, octave-jumping basslines, breathy anonymous divas, and sophisticated studio wizardry that was once only the domain of mustachioed giants like Cerrone and Moroder. These men may not be working on the same scale, but it's an interesting coda, nonetheless.

Dancefloor Workouts & Disco Drops

Montreal's current nightlife might not be as disco-centric as it once was, way back in the glory days when jewelry was both functional and fashionable, a hockey player could record a best-selling disco record, and the nights were long. But it is probably the best time in recent memory to go out and catch some stellar, hard-working DJs play disco, house, early 80's R&B and all the rest. The latest addition to the glittering disco-friendly landscape is the Paradise Garage night, named after the infamous New York disco and built by an impressive cast of Montreal DJs and promoters, including Seb Diamond & Phil AD, F.U.N.K. (from Love! Disco Style, Saturdays at Vinyl), Classi Assi, Rilly Guilty, New Money, Snap magazine and Peer Pressure's A-Rock.

Paradise Garage is every Friday, at Decibel (formerly Coda). 4119 St. Laurent.

More info here...

Banana Split Sundaes presents: Jay Watts III, Team Canada DJs, DJ Sombrero, Jizzy B

I'm DJing this Sunday at Blue Dog along with the hyper-talented Team Canada, DJ Sombrero n' Jizzy B. There's a free keg on the dancefloor, too. If you're so inclined, stop by. Monday's a holiday so we'll be letting loose. Free for girls. $5 at the door for all y'all else or get guestlist by e-mailing rsvp@lookoutpresents.com

Theo Parrish LCD Soundsystem, DFA LCD Soundsystem, James Murphy LCD Soundsystem, LCD Soundsystem Pitchfork

This is tonight!

TONIGHT!
MAD KIDS
JAY WATTS III
HIDDEN HANDZ

Free shot or beer ticket if you come before 11pm
After 11pm: $3 per beer, or 2 for $5
$2 shots all night
Free Red Bull

Bixi stand in front
Dress to impress
FB EVENT

10pm - 6am
1265 des Carriers, Montreal, QC
Very close to the bike-path.