Wednesday, December 12, 2007  7:12 am 

Larry Levan and his Crystal companions visit Mars

If 20JFG were allowed to script and subsequently direct the 3rd series of Heroes we would chuck out all the square jawed and blond-beautiful actors and actresses and employ our beloved musicians as Godsends. Damo Suzuki as Hero, naturally, then maybe Sally Shapiro taking over Claire’s role as the cheerleader and for the Petrelli bothers it would have to go to Arthur Russell and Larry Levan, two ultimate power heroes who will grapple to save the world using analogue weapons and the ability to move people in odd ways with sound.

Nami Shimada - Sunshower (Larry Levan Remix)

Take this odd little 9O’s remix for example. Uncle Levan takes little Nami into the studio and turns her into a house chanteuse with curly black perm, matching black velvet waistcoat and hat, silver hoop earrings and Neneh Cherry vs cute anime character mind-scape. Back it up with red and yellow silhouetted dancers, a blue screen video and robo-voiced backing singers and you have a where were you in 92 Miami house anthem that evokes Jan Hammer pastel palette repainting a Chinese dragon.

Exit the rave and look 9O degrees to the skies, a chrome craft is high in the night cruising across Miami. Monochrome and red strains of rainbows stream from its fuel boosters and melt into the stars and black frozen vacuum. Close Encounter synth lines echo over the bass tones from its external speakers as they beam you up for the afterparty set in a holographic jungle retreat of glass and wood panelling. DJ puts the needle to the record, sets it to 33, fades in the track.

Mc Lane Explosion - Accidental Lover

Mc Lane Explosion released this awesome 12″ in 1977 where they cover Vangelis’ masterpiece ‘Pulstar’, Jean Michel Jarre’s ‘Oxygene’ and Space’s ‘Magic Fly’ adding more Italo ingredients to each, maybe a few more beats here and there, but definitely lifting ‘Oxygene’ out of the quagmire of school science project soundtrack, slamming it into the mountain of disco with the fist of a giant.

But its the cover of ‘Accidental Lover’ by Love and Kisses that excels and leaps into the disco black hole. Listen in gay 7O’s disco rapture as the afro vocals call from across the cosmos heralding bossanova beats on white hot spearheaded asteroids, organ sounds from the minds of great forgotten alien races interweave with sparkling glacial trumpets.

(For more Mc Lane Explosion head to Red Room, one of the best disco blogs ever!)

But once you are removed from the afterparty and there is no space taxi home, the universe can be a dark and unforgiving place to roam. Its cold out there in the vacuum of space, and your drugs are wearing off and this red-earthed planet that your now stranded on harbours a deep, dark and deadly secret.

Skinny Joey - The Black Widow (Cosmic Tempo)

Over the horizon strides a tremendous being of deviant sound! Thundering over the landscape comes this immense creature, black and translucent with bone and muscles fashioned in a strange alien configuration, synthesized blasts coming from its mouth. The glow of its eyes pierce your nervous system with thoughts of dark paranoia from an incessant drum beat.

Skinny Joey occupies this planet and every night at sundown he lets loose this ominous creature that roams the land terrorising citizens with its shifting mass of mutated analogue synth disco. Skinny Joey lurks in the shadows with his controlling orb, Carlos Peron stuck in a silent scream inside, he won’t tell what he re-edits to get this sound (he won’t even tell Discogs).

labels >> Miami, italo, larry levan, nite