A slew of excellent records have landed in the last week or so. Rather than start blathering on about why each is so fantastic, I'm just going to get straight into it today. More important to get the music up, me thinks; that and the fact I'm plain lazy.

Swedish DJ/Producer, Kool DJ Dust released his debut album, The Disco Opera, a couple of weeks ago on the increasingly impressive Service label, coming out of, you guessed it, Sweden. Normally, we'd leave it alone after this long, safe in the knowledge a record as good as this will be jumped on by bloggers months before its release and given the love and respect it deserves. But no, the response, to date, has been muted to say the least, and we just can't let it go - I'm actually offended. It's a great record and has been on heavy ipod rotation round here for well over a fortnight. What's wrong with people. Sheeeeeet!

The Disco Opera is to disco what DJ Shadow's Entroducing is to hip hop. OK, it's nowhere near that monumental, sheeeeeet (sorry), but it's a fair indication of the records intended scope and attention to detail. There's a fanatical love and encyclopedic knowledge of disco at its heart, which makes us weak at the knees; so nuanced and sonically authentic, you'll be forgiven for thinking you've woken up in 1979.

A crate digger extraordinaire, Dust has crafted 19 tracks of expertly sampled, chopped and blended disco rarities and flat-out obscurities that will have you dancin', while your inner geek obsesses over the tracks he's plundered. The result: a sublime slice of spacey italo and disco funk - emphasis on the spacey - with knowing nods, nuances and cosmic scintillations, worthy of a place at the top table of today's disco edits scene.

If you had to pick one member of the Nordic disco fraternity to sit him next to at this hypothetical banquet in the sky, it'd be Rune Lindbaek. We reckon they'd have loads of stuff to chat about, you can just tell; have a listen.

I realise this probably counts as blathering, but, whatever. Sheeeeeet!

Kool DJ Dust - The Magic Record

Kool DJ Dust - Mighty Mighty

Kool DJ Dust - Knowledge to Knowledge

More to come shortly. Loads more in fact and some other writers to help out and give their ten pennies worth of insight. So hang tight.

Been over a week; wondered where we were? No! Well you should you ingrates because we're busting with musical treats for you.

September is a great time of year for music. Loads of new releases hit the shelves as labels start unleashing their post-summer offerings, and this year's crop is particularly exciting.

Californian cosmic disco is not a term you hear too often, is it? San Francisco producer Sam Grawe - aka Hatchback - should change that, though, with his debut album, Colors of the Sun. Released on the ever brilliant Lo Recordings - home of quality electronic disco - it's a hugely accomplished debut and regardless of genre, one of the years highlights: stunning stuff.

The California distinction is important here. Comparisons to heavyweight Scandinavian contemporaries: Lindstrom, Prins Thomas and Studio, etc., should be saved, at least until giving the man his dues. Subverting preconceptions, Colors of the Sun isn't the usual exercise in minimalism and restraint - a requisite for a lot of Nordic "Nu-Disco". There's the obligatory meandering Vangelis-esque synthscape, Horizon, and some Scando-epics in there too, but the sluggish inertia that leaves you wondering what the hell you got yourself into sometimes, is wholly absent, replaced with a warmer, more melodious and optimistic disco sound.

Lindstrom et al's slow burn, chuggin' cosmic carpentry is wonderful, but, as autumn abruptly replaces summer, disco loving inhabitants of this fair isle look to music for sonic escapism, and Hatchback's sunny disposition delivers in spades. The contrast between record and the Tupperware-gray British weather couldn't be more marked.

To these ears, Grawe is of the original Baledelli school of cosmic - Drawing on early Kraut electronics, New Wave, Italo, slo-mo disco and afro-percussion. Listen under a sun lamp sans pants for best results.

This is too damn sexy for tan lines.

Hatchback - Jetlag

Hatchback - Comets

Hatchback - Nesso

Disconaut du jour, Jacques Renault takes the helm of the starship RVNG for the sixth in their genre defining RVNG OF THE NERDS edit series; beaming laser cut grooves through cosmic prisms and spacey funk, Renault's captaincy taps both celestial and terrestrial disco and we just can't stop listening to the results.

Sticking our necks out here, but we weren't crazy about Wade Nichols' - aka Todd Terje's - RVNG OF THE NERDS Vol 5. It got a lot of blog love, which is fair enough, the Norwegian edit-meister turned in an impressive collection of swampy psych-rock tracks. Nice, not too obscure so no one knew what the originals were, but peripheral enough to keep them interesting - perfect re-edit material right?. Well yeah, but coming after series highlight, Lovefingers' Vol 4, this fifth offering just felt a little flat in comparison.

Fear not, because Mr Renault flat out kills it with Volume No 6. His rising status, both at home in New York and abroad, as a leading light in the world of disco is confirmed further with this sublime example of musical knowledge, educated taste and that rare insight required to know exactly what will make a great edit.

Enough! You get it, we're fans. Get your lugs around this cosmic bouncer, it sounds like the soundtrack to the alien casino in Battlestar Galactica, brilliant. Boing!

Jacques Renault - bad skinned

Flick ze Switch!

Fujiya Miyagi return with the release of their third album, Lightbulbs. Yay!

With the permanent addition of Lee Adams on drums, the newly percussive four piece continue the avant-kraut-pop of acclaimed sophomore, Transparent Things, and don't disappoint.

The relentless motorik beats, David Best's surreal polysyllabic wordplay and Damo Suzuki-esque vocals, produce a vividly authentic Teutonic sound. Pterodactyls and Pussyfooting evoke the metronomic funk of Can's 1973 classic, Ege Bamyasi, while awesome Neu inspired lead single, Knickerbocker, revels in hypnotic Klaus Dinger-style repetition. Their best work to date? Yup!

The obligatory "Neo-Disco" chugger, Sore Thumb, sounds like something you'd expect from their last label, Tirk Records - they're now on Full Time Hobby -; it's really good, of course, just not where this album's gold lies. The same can be said for the punk-funk of Uh: great track, but there is much better to be had.

Lightbulbs' Krautrock is a genuine homage. Fujiya Miyagi are the real deal. In the same way Stereolab and Broadcast are the real deal. Hugely important bands who mine the same Germanic retrofuturist seam, and with whom Fujiya Miyagi should be compared in the light of this brlliant record.


Fujiya Miyagi - Pussyfooting

Fujiya Miyagi - Pterodactyls

Fujiya Miyagi - knickerbocker