Cerrone
Cerrone by Bob Sinclair
Recall Records
As soon as you put on Cerrone by Bob Sinclair something amazing happens. The lights in your room go out, a disco ball descends from the ceiling, a vodka tonic appears in your hands and you just can’t stop dancing! Well, maybe the disco ball is a bit of an exaggeration, but the effect this album has on your feet is undeniable.
Bob Sinclair, DJ and Cerrone fan, pulled some of the best disco tracks ever recorded off the shelf, and dusted them off for 21st century dancefloors. Cerrone is a French Eurodisco composer, drummer and music producer. His most seminal work was created in the 1970s and he is best known for his 1976 sci-fi song “Supernature,” which crossed over to the Billboard 100.
The music on this album is danceable and highly erotic. Cerrone often uses the hushed voices of women in the songs, gossiping about how cute he is and debating the size of his member, like on the intro to “Love in C Minor.” Bob Sinclair pays homage to the original version of this song by adding his own sound bytes of whispering women talking about how great a DJ he is and what big hands he has. Cerrone’s taste for the erotic not only floods his songs, but spills out of the albums and onto the cover art. They usually feature gangs of naked women draped over strange objects in unexpected positions.
Each time I put it on, this album recreates the years when disco ruled. The music is fun and happy, and when the girls on “Love in C Minor” are vying for Cerrone’s affections you can feel the atmosphere of the time and the place. It’s like a painting of disco movies’ greatest scenes. The scenes where everyone’s showing off their best moves, doing their first line and the first time two strangers make eye contact across the floor. This song is the highlight of the album. It’s got the beats to shake your body and a glorious orchestra to make you lose yourself in this decadent, sequin-draped world.
Where “Love in C Minor” gets the party started, “Cerrone’s Paradise,” keeps you out all night. It’s the most multi-faceted song on the album. It rises and falls and crescendos into a chorus of what one can only imagine to be a bevy of chiffon-sheathed disco beauties.
Along with Cerrone’s masterpieces are quite a few short songs, the best of which is “Revelacion.” It’s got Spanish guitars, castanets and brilliant horns. While the songs are remastered beautifully and seamlessly within themselves, on the album they stand independent of one another. I would have preferred that Sinclair made the album one longer master-mix, instead of stopping and starting for each song. It breaks the continuity a little, but it isn’t enough to put me off the album, as it is packed with disco fun goodness.
Recall Records: http://www.recallrecords.com
