- Cosmo Vitelli's hands have been in underground disco long enough that he's a reliable a guide to its treasures as any, so when you live in an info-saturated era and need the aid of a human info-filter, then the smart money would be on someone like Cosmo, a gadfly DJ and scene supporter who produces, edits and runs his own label. Furthermore, how can you not trust someone whose nom de plume has been cribbed from a Ben Gazzara character? The original Cosmo, protagonist of The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, is a hapless, warm-hearted strip-club patriarch—it wouldn't be that hard to imagine a remake of the Cassavetes classic, with Cosmo managing a label roster instead of a harem of exotic dancers, and releasing vinyl-only re-workings of Fleetwood Mac instead of getting tangled up with the mob.
Cosmo's latest, a tidy edits package, is for the most part best appreciated with the knowledge that while it's clear a taste-maker should be out getting the drop on rare gems, the ability to sift through more widely-known material is just as important. In other words, while three of the four cuts here aren't exactly clichés, they're a far cry from arcana. Side A opens with Skyy's "First Time Around," a Paradise Garage classic bristling with hustle and boogie. Cosmo gives it the Hardy treatment, letting the vocal line unspool only once before trapping the last fading sliver of human voice in a hypnotic loop, like trapping a splendorous butterfly in a glass jar. This gets followed up by an extended version of "Keep on Going," a pre-Buckingham/Nicks Fleetwood jam, where Christine McVie sings an ode to perseverance over a chugging disco-rock groove. Here the re-editor is at times like a cartographer, using the track as a map, opening up clearing in newly-extended breaks, using loops and cuts to find ways across strange terrain.
The flip leaves disco behind, and things go further into left-field: B1 is an aggressive, icy cut of "Discurse" by Material, a great techno-tinged post-punk groover, and then the closer bursts in to end the record with a bang: Armand Frydman's "Jungle," a cult piece of library music, is the standout as well as the one you most likely haven't heard before. Tweaked, jacked-up, undergirded with funk bass, this lost oddity morphs into a dazzling stomp with plonking bells and crystalline swirl. You're left with that singularly delightful sensation, in which an unknown song feels totally novel and unexpected, yet utterly familiar and compelling at the same time.
TracklistA1 First Time Around
A2 Keep on Going
B1 Discurse
B2 Jungle