BOMBAY DISCO (VARIOUS ARTISTS)

By the late 70s, the genre of dance music disco had began to make its exit out of the United States. Despite being a powerhouse music style for much of the 70s, its reputation waned and grew into a backlash as the 80s grew closer. Yet as its popularity fizzled in its native continent, it debuted and subsequently exploded overseas. The sound of disco music reached India in 1979, where it took off and remained an extremely popular style of music well into the 90s, and became the soundtrack to Bombay’s burgeoning Bollywood film industry.

What separated India’s interpretation of disco music from the US was the wildly surreal and experimental directions the country was willing to take it. Club-ready beats were melted together with Indian folk instruments like sitars and tablas, and frequently with entire orchestras, presenting an innovative new take on the dancehall music, against a backdrop of ornate chorus-lines of Bollywood dancers inspired by the choreography of Busby Berkley. Fusions of wildly different genres like jazz, Latin, rock n’ roll, electro, and hip-hop would also make their way into these compositions, which appeared in a wide range of films, from comedies, to dramas, to historical epics, to horror flicks.

Cultures Of Soul Records, with the assistance of Combustible Edison keys-player & DJ, Brother Cleve, have already touched upon the early years of this genre with their compilation Bombay Disco: Disco Hits from Hindi Films (1979-1985) earlier this year. Now the Massachusetts-based funk/soul label returns for a sequel: Bombay Disco 2. Where the first Bombay Disco touched upon the genre’s heyday during the late-70s to mid-80s, Bombay Disco 2 focuses on the genre’s development after the heigh of its popularity, when the music’s style began to shift to appeal to more modern listeners, and began to fuse with more and more varied influences. Big names of the genre such as Asha Bhosle, Bappi Lahiri, Parvati Khan, Kishore Kumar, and various others can be heard throughout the 12-track collection. As before, DJ Brother Cleve is onhand to direct the compilation, as well as provide extensive liner notes and context to one of India’s more surreal and captivating genres of music.

Shipping on compact disc and coming soon on vinyl from Traffic Entertainment Group!