Disco Deviance!

Disco Deviance is a label synonymous with the party atmosphere currently sweeping the land. Now on its 9th release, and going strong, its a label that’s gaining a worldwide fanbase. Dicky Trisco, DD head honcho, kindly supplied a really good underground disco mix for the site, along with answering a number of extremely taxing questions. You can find the mix ready to be played (or downloaded) at the very bottom of this post (along with tracklisting), and you can find the interview…directly below.

Thanks for your time, DT…

Q. Disco Deviance is on its 9th release now and going strong – how did Disco Deviance originally come about?

Yes things are going well with Disco Deviance. The response has been amazing. And hopefully the series has taken this disco sound to a whole new younger audience, as well as giving the discoheads some hot new versions to play.

The label came about for a number of reasons really. Mainly it happened because about 5 years ago, I had grown tired of the direction house music was headed in, and I got right back into the disco and electrofunk sound I had loved as a kid. That was what I wanted to DJ and it inspired the music we were producing at the time, especially the Boogie Corporation stuff I was doing with my mate Calum. Things had come full circle really because it was that disco and electrofunk sound had inspired me to get into dance music in the first place and then the whole Acid House thing took off.

I was also frustrated with DJ sets that sounded the same all the way through and with dance music getting stuck in more and more specialised sub-genres. So I just wanted to play music because it was good again, whatever style it may be, which is kind of where the disco scene with pioneers like Larry Levan, David Mancuso, Tee Scott and Nicky Siano set out from in the first place.

Then I met Greg Wilson. The timing couldn’t have been better. Even though I had been playing at an eclectic disco night in Glasgow for a year or so anyway leading up to that, it was still a revelation for me. When I heard him play it was just like wow now that is DJing and that is the way I want to play music from now on. And to see such a positive reaction from the crowd was well just amazing. So he was a big influence on me and from then on and that vibe spread from the DJing into wanting to do edits and start an imprint to release that kind of sound.

Q. Are you riding high on the current disco resurgence?

Well the disco scene isn’t a massive scene really, that’s what I like about it. Ideally I like 300 people in a nice basement club who are really into the music and want to dance. But disco is certainly popular at the moment. You can see that from looking at the bestsellers charts on websites like Juno these days where people like Greg and Todd Terje, and labels like Disco Deviance and Mindless Boogie are outselling house, techno and minimal.

With the Disco Deviance releases we try very hard to keep up the standards and aren’t interested in just knocking stuff out. With each release we try to make it as difficult as possible for DJs to choose which side they want to play first. It’s all about the music and the sound of our records. And as long as we continue to find tracks we think we can release worthwhile new versions of and the response and feedback is as good as it has been, then we are happy to continue doing just that.

Q. Do you have a particular vibe that you try to stick with on the label, or is it anything goes disco?

We like the music to be good. Irresistably good. We want DJs to be desperate to play the new releases and for the records to sound amazing when played off the vinyl so that you can actually feel a reaction instantly on the dance floor. That’s the vibe we are after. So as long as release or a track has that feeling in our opinion then we will go with it.

The first release on Disco Deviance by Greg really set the standard for what was to come. One side was an amazing edit of DC La Rue which was just pure disco boogie, and then on the flip was an incredible edit of Psychokiller which just blew everyone away. Discoheads like Ashley Beedle, Prins Thomas and Pete Herbert were playing the A side and DJs like Andrew Weatherall and Optimo were all over the flip. Perfect combination. And since then that eclectic vibe has continued. Some call it a ‘Balearic’ anything goes approach, and I am happy to go with that definition, but that’s probably because I am desperate for a bloody holiday in the sun!!!

Q. What artists are part of the Disco Deviance stable?

At the moment on the label we are developing a healthy blend of more established editors like Greg Wilson, Ashley Beedle, Pete Herbert, BC etc mixed up with plenty of new faces to the disco scene like Out in the Sticks and Situation who are producing some amazing material that is getting a lot of attention.

Q. And future releases?

Well we are coming up to our 10th release so we have decided to mark the occasion by going back to our roots. So Greg Wilson has put together two wonderful new edits which we will be releasing in September. After that we have releases coming up by Reverso 68, Social Disco Club, Situation, Andrew Allsgood and a certain Cosmic Boogie which are all wicked. We are very lucky with the quality of the stuff we get sent and the people we work with.

Q. Do you run club nights as Disco Deviance, or is it strictly the label imprint?

We started out as a club night, with Greg and I playing the kind of sound we loved on a one-off kind of basis. And I suppose the imprint developed out of that. I still play with Greg at our Autodisco night which has become my main focus on the club front now. But I am about to head out to Australia in the Autumn for a Disco Deviance tour which I’m really looking forward to. And there are also plans in the pipeline for a tour of Canada and the US as well. So we are getting plenty of opportunities to spread the Disco Deviance sound. And of course Greg does a top job for the scene as a whole and seems to be a on a constant world tour at the moment spreading the disco love.

Q. What about the scene in general – opinion is split on the whole edit thing – what are your thoughts?

Yes you are right. There is a lot of anti-edit vibes kicking about, which is understandable. I think in my experience that happens when any scene grows and gets more successful. More people get into it, more releases get put out every week, more nights appear and some of the quality control drops and people start getting sick of it. Human nature really. But the good thing is that in the meantime a lot of people are coming into contact with some wonderful music. Many of them will just pass through and move on, but for some it will have a big effect upon them. I get emails all the time from people saying they have had near religious-like experiences hearing this or that DJ playing this ‘disco’ sound one night and that it just switched them onto the music and now they want more.

But on the negative side of things, I suppose the focus on edits is probably having some negative impact on the production of new dance music. People can’t keep looking backwards and just keep on reworking things. But then again it is also producing some great new producers like The Revenge who do original stuff as well and imprints like Bear Funk, Tirk and DC who are responding to the wider interest in disco influenced sounds and are making great original music.

So in the end I think people should approach it with well if it’s good then it’s good, and if it’s bad then just don’t buy it. But DJs have always made their own versions of tracks for playing out and that work on the dance floor. And that is a tradition I am fascinated by and happy to be part of.

Q. And is this vibe going to keep growing?

Good music will never die and people will keep on re-inventing things to keep things they love alive. And especially now as the technology is there to make it even easier to do just that. But quality is the thing people have to keep in the back of their minds. Just because something can be done doesn’t mean it is worth doing…

Q. About this mix – its fantastic, a real good mix of disco and old school vibes, yet feels super fresh…

Well the idea behind the mix is the same idea that is behind everything we do with Disco Deviance. Play it if it is good, try and get it all to sit together nicely and then go with it. I love DJs like Greg and the Optimo guys who take tracks you think you know and then put them in new Situations that make them seem fresh and exciting again. That idea has had a big influence on how I approach what I play. In terms of some of the tracks I play now as well I think the whole ‘dance music’ scene has now come of age which in many ways has not been a pleasant experience as it has to struggle with not being the latest fad etc But the good thing about it is that now we can start revisiting some of the trax that were massive for us during that time and they can stand or fall as ‘music’ and as ‘classic trax’ on their own. So for example in this mix The Orb track or the Blue Boy track sit alongside tracks by Stevie Wonder, Orange Juice, Rufus & Chaka Khan and the Happy Mondays…it’s a level playing field and it’s all just music now.

In fact when we were playing for Rizla recently at Rockness there was a sound engineer who was brilliant and he was getting right into our set and during it he tapped me on the shoulder and said ‘So what do you call this kind of sound?’. And I said we called it ‘disco’ and he looked confused. And I know what he meant. It’s much more than that..which is why the term ‘Balearic’ gets used cause it is more about an approach to playing than about any particular sound. In fact there was a comment on DJ History lately that summed it all up perfectly. I think it was by Bill Brewster who responded to someone who said that there wasn’t enough ‘disco’ at one of their nights by saying they were not a ‘disco night’ they were a ‘music night’. I think that is a great way to put it.

Full Tracklisting

(nb: the mix is a 320 mp3 as its been mastered, and I didnt want the quality to be lost too much. Its a longer download, or heavier stream, but worth it)

Rappers Delight (Harri Edit)
Pushin On (Situation Edit) / Disco Deviance
Gotta Keep Workin’ It (GW Mash) / Reactivate
Rip It Dub (Dicky Trisco Edit) / Disco Deviance
6th Borough Project / Do It 2 The Max
Stevie Wonder / Superstition ( Todd Terje Edit)
Give Me The Sunshine (Social Disco Club Edit)
Rufus & Chaka Khan / Ain’t Nobody (Frankie Knuckles Hallucinogenic Dub)
Sonic Assassins / Fumble In The Bungle
We Love Leon / Tribute
Disco Easy (Situation Edit)
We Love Mondays / Tribute
BBG / Snappiness
Blue Boy / Remember Me
The Orb / Little Fluffy Clouds (Pal Joey’s Cumulo Nimbus  Mix)

Possibly related posts:

• Out In The Sticks…
• Liverpool Disco Mixes – Rich Furness
• Liverpool Disco Mixes – Paul Outlar