ZE30: ZE Records 1979 – 2009 – Various Artists [Album]

Strut Records

October 27, 2009, 10:24 PM

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This compilation (70 minutes, 14 artists) is a celebration of thirty years of ZE Records. Thirty years!? Ye Gods, I nearly died when I read that. I still have my vinyl copy of the early label compilation “Mutant Disco” from back in the day and could have sworn it was yesterday. And in some ways it could be yesterday. ZE’s conflagration of new wave and leftfield disco, of art-house suss and hipster style with a fiercely independent outlook is so very noughties post-punk revisited.

If you’re looking for a contemporary comparison for eclecticism and cool then James Murphy’s DFA comes closest. However ZE Records was not a musician-led collective. The New York label was set up by French art student Michel Esteban and British journalist Michael Zilkha (Esteban re-launched the label in 2003 with the help of Strut Records who issue this compilation). A quick glance at the roster of artists may put you off if all you are familiar with is the (later) chart-friendly vaudeville of Was (Not Was) and Kid Creole & The Coconuts. Here’s where they learned their chops and where you hear them at their best: the proto-house and tropical rhythms of ‘There’s Something Wrong in Paradise’ and the six and half minute funk-out of ‘Tell Me That I’m Dreaming’ from the Was Brothers (but no ‘Wheel Me Out’ – a strange omission).

Elsewhere on offer is the sleazy rock-disco of Christina, the white-boy punk-funk of James White (aka Chance) & The Blacks, and the sassy disco-strut of ‘Deputy of Love’ by Don Armando’s 2nd Avenue Rhumba Band (an early Kid Creole project) which does exactly what that band name suggests. There are the oddities too - Alan Vega’s rockabilly-electro ‘Dream Baby Dream’ and the sleigh bell-euro-disco of Re Bop Electronic – which show how ZE then and now was prepared to go out on a limb (it was never simply about dance-floor filler).

You could argue their best music came in the early years. You could argue that not all of their output is consistent or consistently good (‘French Boys’ by Garcons is as camp and flashy as a mirror-ball but ultimately quite flimsy). But then you hear Material’s liberation anthem ‘Bustin’ Out’ with the untouchable soul-belter vocals from Nona Hendryx and most things are forgiven.

‘Mutant Disco’ will always be an appropriate summation and statement of intent for ZE Records – and this compilation makes a decent fist – if not a killer punch – at showing how and why.

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