Various - Too Slow To Disco

Ah, the mid-70s »Me Generation«, not so happily remembered. And for years now in the taste-conscious music world, people have laughed at the L.A.-sound with its super-smooth, over-lavish, luxury-laden excesses. Chord progressions as thrusting as that bridge across the bay. Love the white blazer by the way. Neiman-Marcus, right?

But Too Slow For Disco isn’t interested in your ageing hang-ups. As you know, as music ages the best parts shine through, and this collection is a delectable document of this forgotten phase of the mid-70s West Coast music world. We’ve unearthed some of the lesser-known but still beautiful mood music of this period, by people who were often just starting out, or would write their biggest hits years later, but who surfed the West Coast wave penning some total gems. 

This sound is everywhere these days, echoing down the years, influencing the likes of Midlake, Haim, Gonzales, John Grant, Ariel Pink, Jonathan Wilson, Rhye, Devendra Banhart, Destroyer, Phoenix, out to the more discofied sounds of Chromeo, Breakbot, and recently Darkside.

And it’s not just dusty rediscoveries in old record shops, there’s also a growing new sound of L.A. spearheaded by bands like Poolside, Classixx, Miami Horror, Kisses whose music is infused with the city’s trademark mellow, sunny pop and disco notes.

Musical pleasures should always be unabashed, so with this first volume of our Too Slow For Disco compilation-series we want to share some of the great acts and songs that made the mid-late 70s California scene so awesome. And pleasingly (judging from the many telephone calls we had to make in order to find the mastertapes) most of the artists are very much still alive and kicking.

So, think of us as your enablers: in just a moment you too can be transported from your current grey, drab modernity to a lost world, a sun-drenched land of possibility, where the music is as deftly arranged as the cocktails they’ve just brought round. Good? Oh that’s good, yeah …

This double vinyl edition produced by How Do You Are? Recordings in 2014. US Import.

TRACKLISTING:

1. NED DOHENY Get it up for love
2. MICKY DENNE AND KEN GOLD Let’s put our love back together
3. RUPERT HOLMES Deco lady
4. WHITE HORSE Over and done with
5. BROWNING BRYANT Liverpool fool
6. NICOLETTE LARSON Lotta love
7. ALESSI BROTHERS Do you feel it?
8. PHOTOGLO Steal away
9. BRIAN ELLIOT Room to grow
10. CHICAGO Saturday in the park
11. DON BROWN Shut the door
12. MATTHEW LARKIN CASSELL Rendezvous
13. PAGES If I saw you again
14. THE DOOBIE BROTHERS Losin’ end
15. FLEETWOOD MAC Sugar daddy
16. ROBBIE DUPREE Steal away
17. DAVID BATTEAU Spaceship earth
18. TONY JOE WHITE I’ve got a thing about you baby
19. JAN HAMMER GROUP Don’t you know