Following on from the phenomenal success of the recent “Italo House” and “Remixed With Love” compilation plus more Joey Negro compiled albums including “GoGo Get Down”, “Backstreet Brit Funk”, “Destination Boogie” and the ever-popular Soul of Disco series Z Records continues to release high quality compilations filled with lesser known disco, funk and boogie. Now it’s the return of the highly regarded Under The Influence series with Volume Four compiled by Nick The Record.
From the slow mo disco of State of Grace’s ‘Touching The Times (Dub)’ to the sun-kissed calypso vibe of Boogsie’s ‘Cant You See Me’, Charlie Mike Sierra’s space-disco on ‘On The Moon’ and the more soulful, funk side such as Betty & Beverly Prudhomme’s ‘Tut Tut Twins (Part One)’ and fun(k) disco of cuts like Ronnie Jones ‘Video Games’ we find Nick The Record’s highly infectious selection getting us once more, under the influence.
“My whole life has revolved around records. I was buying Hip Hop and House in the Eighties as it was released and I got heavily into tracing the steps back through breaks and sample sources that were used in Hip Hop records. I also joined the dots between Disco & modern club & House music & spread my music explorations from Rare Groove to rare Disco. There were very few people interested in this vein of music history at the time & even fewer as obsessed as me. So when the re-emergence of Disco exploded I was well ahead of the curve, not only in collecting but historical knowledge. The best thing about record collecting is that it never ends and after 35 years of buying, after 25 years of selling & playing records there is still old stuff to discover & new releases to endeavour to keep up with.”
So as something of an expert in all things Disco, Nick gets quite a few offers to release compilations but as a record obsessive his natural hoarding mentality makes him cautious to give up the goods. As anyone who’s been aware of his record selling website www.djfriendy.co.uk over the last 10 years and his paper sales lists (now that’s old school) for more than 10 years preceding, he could easily put together a compilation of the rarest Disco & Boogie 12 inches, and there are, of course, some of those included here but he wanted to share more than that.