Ray Mang
Mangled
Mangled

Ray Mang is the disco dance party DJ alter ego of writer/producer Raj Gupta. The moniker was introduced as a vehicle for creating, releasing and spinning anything goes disco-centric party music for collectors, dancers, enthusiasts and Jocks alike. Taking inspiration from the extended disco mixes, dub versions and edits of such luminaries as Larry Levan, Walter Gibbons, Daniele Baldelli, Tee Scott, Began Cekic and Tom Moulton, and the open minded music policies of some of the pioneering early clubs such as the Paradise Garage, the Loft and the Italian Cosmic parties, Ray Mang sets out to help keep the glitter ball shimmering and the disco flame burning into the new millennium!


Abe Duque
Don’t Be So Mean
Process Recordings

THE STORY It’s drawn from an album with artwork and a name that are a sly comment on American foreign policy. But the first track taken from Abe Duque’s new album Don’t Be So Mean, the Obama-sampling "Tonight Is Your Answer," is political but far from pessimistic. It’s a reflection of Abe’s chequered life. He’s been both a US Marine and a resident DJ at New York’s notorious club-kid 90s-club Limelight. He knows how to operate the machine gun on the cover of the album, but wishes there was less call for gunfire. He’s been arrested for potential terrorism -- but for being found with a knife issued to him by the US government itself. Don’t be so mean, as the expression goes … And in the music world, he’s been in and out, up and down, from residencies at Tresor during the height of its first popularity to being so broke in the early 90s that he could barely afford to release his own records. And then he's come back into the limelight again with his own hand-etched vinyl and tracks like "Champagne Days, Cocaine Nights"; "What Happened?" and "Acid" -- not to mention remixes of huge acts like Miss Kittin and the Chemical Brothers. Now he’s back with his third album, Don’t Be So Mean, and first single "Tonight is your answer," backed with "Life is so good to me."

King Roc
Chapters
Process Recordings

              

Even five short years ago, many clubbers, ravers and dance music fans would be hard pressed to recognize the names Ron Hardy or Larry Levan (above, R-L), let alone acknowledge African American influence on the music they get freaky to on the weekends. Even in the black community, whole generations seem completely oblivious to this part of their musical heritage. Thankfully, that's changing. With a renewed interest in disco, 80's uptempo R&B aka boogie, techno and early house music over the past few years, knowledge of dance music's history and the role blacks (and gays and latinos) played in its inception is growing. Nightclubs where the music was allowed to evolve, like Levan's Paradise Garage (right) in New York, Hardy's Music Box and Frankie Knuckles' Warehouse in Chicago (the latter being where the name House Music was coined) and Detroit's Music Institute remain legendary not because of the venues themselves or the people who owned them, but due to the DJ's who made those places immortal by performing an aural alchemy that transformed the American soundscape.