After 2013’s excellent School Daze release, the reassessment of 70s-era electronic producer Patrick Cowley continues on a second compilation of his little-heard experimental music, some of which ended up as soundtracks to pre-VHS gay porn films.
Cowley is best known for his disco and HI-NRG productions and remixes for Sylvester, Donna Summer and Paul Parker, but Muscle Up makes the case that he was an ambient master in the making when he became an early victim of AIDS in 1982. Much of the music here is a slower burn than the psychedelic head rush of School Daze, which evoked the darkened corners of San Francisco’s 70s gay underground. A sense of cosmic serenity pervades The Jungle Dream, Deep Inside You and Uhura, which mix fizzing arpeggios with otherworldly noises and didgeridoos that sound like a portal to a dreamworld slowly ripping open.
The mid-section includes a few funkier numbers, as well as the instrumental that later became Sylvester’s I Need Somebody To Love Tonight. The liner notes focus more on Cowley as a musical collaborator and pioneer of multi-track recording than a loner. Accordingly, there’s an openness, un-hurriedness and beauty to these recordings that feel at one with something greater.
Top track: Mockingbird Dream 2
Honey Soundsystem DJs the Black Eagle on Friday (December 11).
