Where disco never got shitty: 'Lagos Disco Inferno'
Hot tip: back in the ‘70s disco secretly escaped to Nigeria, where it thrived in African discotechs, blissfully unaware of what was happening back in the states. Sleeper hit of the Spring, Lagos Disco Inferno charts the continuation of disco on the dark continent: 12 tracks of hits and obscurities from all throughout the 70s. Look at these superb liner notes from Dean Disi, music journalist and formerly Director of Lagos-based label TYC Records:
Lagos by the 1970s was a huge metropolitan city. Due to the oil boom, there was money to made with music and nightlife and big international record labels like EMI, Decca and Philips had set up their recording studios that for a big part got equipped with vintage hardware handed down for their European franchises. So as the sound of the late 70s and early 80s in Europe and in the US got more and more modern and from today’s point of view just plain shitty, overloaded with ugly sounding Roland keyboards, the sound of Lagos was dominated by powerful horn sections, heavy drums, and percussion instruments. There’s plenty of early Moog synthesizers but no synth-generated strings or fake horns.
Expertly crate-dug by Frank Gossner of Voodoofunk.com. Check track “Don’t Put Me Down” for this brazen fusion of disco and highlife that just makes us want to get shitty and take our clothes off.
