Happy New Year from B.E, I hope everyone enjoyed themselves to excess. I guess this is the first post of 2010, so to keep things in a jubilant, optimistic mood I'm going to post a feel good proto boogie number, yet again, from the West End stable.

I Get Lifted was written by H.W Casey and Rick Finch of K.C and the Sunshine Band fame, and comes with a mix by label owner Mel Cheren himself.

The Sweet Life - I Get Lifted

My head has been stuck in the boogie zone for so long now that sometimes I forget that I actually own a few great 70's disco records. Now I would call this track cosmic disco, a genre I quite enjoy but admittedly have not explored nearly enough. Nevertheless, Michele's second 12" released on West End Records in 1977 is my favorite cosmic track. With a studio band consisting of members of the Lafayette Afro Rock Band and Ice, production by Tom Moulton and a remix by Patrick Cowley, "Disco Dance" is a highly sought after and groundbreaking recording. This was the legendary Patrick Cowley's first known recorded production credit.

Michele - Disco Dance (Mega Mix)

From 1981 comes the fresh debut "Time" from 6 piece, Stone. With its ultra heavy bassline, funky synth stabs and clavinet hits, these guys fit in rather well with the sound contemporaries like The Strikers were helping to pave in the New York City black club scene. Featured here is the instrumental B side of a 12" promo copy on the mighty West End label. Providing the final touch is legendary Better Days club DJ and mix master Tee Scott.

Stone - Time (Instrumental)

West End is my favorite old school New York dance record label, and its output in the post disco era, that being arguably the early nineteen eighties onward, is my favorite material from the label. Sparque's 'Take Some Time' is my favorite track from that period of West End, so maybe therefor by that logic it's my favorite ever dance track.

Sparque's 'Take Some Time' comes from a time when disco was in deep mainstream decline, the shunning of disco by popular radio in effect gave it back to the underground, beaten, sick and in terrible shape. With the spotlight turned away the genre was given a chance to breathe, convalescing in the wharehouses and clubs of a few of the world's big cities. Evolving with newly injected creativity spawned from limited resources and ever cheaper technology, eventually to re-emerge with a new face and several new names, boogie, electro, house etc
. 'Take Some Time' is straight out of that transition, its still has the traditional elements and live instrumentation of disco, a very minimal but soulful vocal, some of the stripped down groove of boogie and the synthy punch that would mark the rest of the decade. Its great to mix, has a slow to mid tempo and it gratifyingly hookey with the disco bell curve sine wave 'booo' sound all over a mix that typifies the idiom "less is more", the arrangement and build up also utilize every lesson learned at the what was then the tail end of the first generation of disco producer's decade long journey.

Sparque was the project of producer Larry Joseph, a prolific but mysteriously uncelebrated figure who created some of the best works on West End under his Sparque moniker, all tastefully energy filled dance floor movers, and who made a very natural progression into Electro and hip hop as the decade wore on (one of which I know Larry himself raps on), eventually even releasing a couple of house records as the nineties loomed. What happened to him, what he looked like, what his deal was at the time, I have no idea whatsoever and the fact he is so undocumented is a shame as his creative contribution to that important formative era of modern dance music is as important (to my mind at least) as many of the other much hailed production giants of the genre.

Sparque - Take Some Time