S&D: Ze Records

you need the aural exciters. now!

stirmonster to thread!

http://www.concentric.net/~brian714/brian2.gif

anyway - ze - search - pretty much the whole lot.

it's a very schizo label (which is why i love it). half no wave, half disco / mutant disco / camp pop etc.

on the no wave side, my essential picks are

contortions - buy. buy it - it's a masterpiece!

james white and the blacks - contort yourself 12". thee best punk funk record of all time with a super disco drums production by august darnell. the rapture filched the beat for 'house of jealous lovers'.

james white and the blacks - off white. ze gave mr. chance some money to record a disco album and this is what he delivered. if albert ayler played disco.....

james white's flaming demonics - worth it for the super louche 'i danced with a zombie' and his monstrous fucking up of duke ellington's 'caravan'

lizzy mercier descloux - press colour. disco punk funk jazz. 'wawa' is up there with 'contort yourself' while her covers of 'mission impossible' and arthur brown's 'fire' are mutant disco at it's very best. my top moment however is 'tumour' her cover of 'fever'. cheeky, irreverent, groovy and scarily prescient as ms. descloux is currently very ill with cancer.

arto / netto - pini pini 12". if you like dna, this will make you come. arto's guitar here is as much the blueprint for steve albini's later sound as gang of four. the record consists of drum machine hi hats, guitar and netto's surreal poetry over the top. it is insane. it is to die for!

alan vega (ok, so he's not no wave but he freaking rules) - collision drive. this album freaking rules - he does a straight rock n' roll version of 'ghost riders' which is immense and the 13 minute 'viet vet' is as harrowing and as good as 'frankie teardrop'. every track is a killer.

alan vega - jukebox baby 12". i think this was a massive hit in france. the french are clearly a nation with good taste as this should have been a hit everywhere.

alan vega - saturn strip. if yr a vega, ric ocasek or a synth pop era ministry fan then you'll love this (ocasek and ministry produced it). i'm all three so it couldn't really fail. one of the few great synth pop albums with a rollicking cover of hot chocolate's 'every one's a winner'.

suicide - alan vega / martin rev. oft ignored classic second suicie lp produced by ocasek.

suicide - dream baby dream 12" - one of my favourite singles of all time. total pop perfection. the b-side 'radiation' sounds like it was produced by maurizio!

mars - 3e 12".

teenage jesus and the jerks - pre 12"

lydia lunch - queen of siam. i love lydia. she's how i first got into ze. this album is a masterpiece. honestly, forget yr lunch preconceptions, it is fantastic. half of it is no wave disco - 'atomic bongos' is a dancefloor destroyer but the real treat is the half of the lp that i'm surprised david lynch hasn't used in one of his soundtracks. orchestrated by the guy who did the flintstones theme and with guitar by robert quine, these are beautiful acid torch songs. 'lady scarface' a cover of 'spooky' and 'gloomy sunday' will make you swoon.

i need to sleep now so i'll do the mutant disco picks later.

as noted up above, ze is back with a wonderful website and a great reissue programme. they have signed one new act so far, a glasgow four piece (3 girls and a guy) called michael dracula. they are kind of turbo no wave pop.

some loser recently did a cover of 'contort yourself' which was the first new release on the reactivated label. someone should really give him a big spanking for messing with such a sacred song!

suicide are a big fave of mine, especially

various - mutant disco - originally a triple 12" box set and then later an lp, this has songs from was (not was), material, kid creole, cotai mundi. 'wheel me out' by was (not was) and 'busting out' by material still destroy dancefloors to this day.

aural exciters - spooks in space bob blank's supergroup featuring lizzy mercier descloux, james chance, taana gardener, lydia lunch, pat place, august darnell and cotai mundi. this lp is thee definition of mutant disco. the song 'spooks in space' is a perfect example of the camp pop aesthetic that ze did so well while emile (night rate) is massive attack twenty years before they existed.

aural exciters - my boy lollipop 12" - as preposterous as you can possibly imagine.

aural exciters - spooks in space 7" on spooky glow in the dark vinyl. whoo!

garcons - bop electronique 7" - the first record ever to use a 909 drum machine? slow and low quirky electropop sung in french. every electroca$h pretender should hear this and give up.

cristina - 'drive my car 7" - disco pop beatles cover. you'll either love it or hate it.

cristina - is that all there is? 7"/12". an absolute masterpiece and the best end of the night club record ever recorded. a cover of a leiber and stoller / peggy lee song, this is extremely rare as leiber and stoller freaked when they heard the changes cristina had made to the words and demanded it be withdrawn. cristina was michael zilkha's wife. zilkha (now a billionaire energy magnate) was the z in ze. anyway, cristina, apart from being stunningly beautiful was also a theatre critic / writer renowned for her savage wit and fierce intellect. her reworking and delivery of the words is total genius, savagely bitter, very funny and ultra sexy. i actually prefer the shorter 7" version but either is an essential listen.

don armando's 2nd ave rhumba band - i am an indian too 12" - produced by cotai mondi and with fonda rae on vocals. this is the b-side to 'deputy of love' and is one of the most gloriously camp records of all time. a cover of the irving berlin song from 'annie get your gun' (which doesn't actually feature in the musical anymore due to crazed political correctness), it is a devilishly stoopid disco delight that could only have come out on ze.

gichy dan - cowboys and gangsters 12". kind of reminiscent of don armando and possibly even more camp if such a thing is possible.

i'm sure i've forgotten a few things worthy of note, but, hey, it's late. i never really investigated too much was (not was) or kid creole, perhaps because as a kid they were always on top of the pops and back then i stupidly regarded pop as the enemy. anyway, someone else is probably better equipped to do a search and destroy on these acts who probably sold more record search than the whole rest of the roster combined. you should check out the basquait film 'downtown 81'. the acting is so appalling that it is great but the real treat is the footage of various acts performing (the dna studio footage in particular). anyway, there's film of kid creole and the coconuts doing 'me no pop i' in concert and they look like the most fun live band of all time. THAT is what scissor sisters must dream of wanting to be like.

there is going to be a ze edits compilation later this year where various hipster producers will take their fave ze moment and re edit it.

Stirmonster, do you know whether this Davitt Sigerson is the same fellow as seems to have made at least one record under the name "The Disco Dub Band"? It's an odd record: released on Island / Movers, saying "A Division of Rockers Records" (can it have something to do with Augustus Pablo? Surely not...?) and listing a Dorane on the label who I assume is Mike Dorane, UK-based journalist writing for the rather excellent "Black Music" amongst others, the producer is down as Davitt / Sigerson. The sound is very proto-Ze. I'd never heard of it until riffling through an old box of my brother's 7" singles the other night.

Dear s(t)ir,

Please do not talk aboot yr S&M predilections in public, it's very unbecoming.

and tim, i've not heard the davitt sigerson but i have heard it's a stinker. ze certainly put out a few awful records too.

other great releases i forgot are the ze christmas record and the waitresses 'that's what boys like'.

love that

If you are in the US you can get 'em at Forced Exposure....

just heard about this today. so sad.

or Tower Records

Anybody heard this?

http://www.discogs.com/Various-Zevolution-ZE-Records-Re-Edited/release/2026677

i dig it! tho a lot of the edits have been around for quite a while, they're all really solid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCX33Rwk6SQ&feature=youtu.be

^^^ with Jody Harris, great!

I took the kids to Universal Studios Orlando over the holidays and heard The Waitresses' "Christmas Wrapping" not once but twice around the grounds. It was merry!