PATRICK COWLEY Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Dark Entries has assembled a superb collection of covers celebrating 60s garage and soul music by the one and only Patrick Cowley. This LP showcases another side of the great producer's diverse influences, in particular his psychedelic San Francisco roots which can be heard in most tracks. They were mostly written between 1980 and 1982 when he was in prolific form and highlight his virtuosity while paying respects to the music that shaped him. The collection features a reimagined version of Loverde's 'Iko Iko,' a hi-NRG cover of The Doors' '20th Century Fox,' and a haunting take on The Who's "Shakin' All Over." It concludes with a swinging rendition of the Four Tops' 'Baby I Need Your Loving' and is another essential one for the collection.

Review: Much loved and hugely influential disco maestro Patrick Cowley is back on regular home label Dark Entries with From Behind. The label has done much great work to highlight his indelible contribution to the world of disco after he left a remarkable legacy before his death in 1982 from AIDS-related illness. Known for his chart-topping disco hits, this one is a collection of vibrant covers of 60s garage and soul classics recorded during his prolific period from 1980 to 1982. From Behind then is full of all of Cowley's influences and blends psychedelic sounds into dancefloor-ready tracks that honour the songs that shaped him. The album arrives on both CD as here, but also vinyl, complete with great artwork.

Review: The excellent Dark Entries returns to shine a spotlight on the legend that is Patrick Cowley with a newly remastered release of 'Kickin' In.' Although Cowley left behind an extensive archive of unreleased work, Dark Entries has honoured his legacy with many great previous releases. This one came about after Cowley heard rising star Frank Loverde perform at San Fran's The City, a disco cabaret, and invited him, Linda Imperial, and Peggy Gibbons to collaborate on recordings. The result was a nine-minute cybernetic disco anthem embodying Cowley's hi-NRG style. Originally released in 2015 by Honey Soundsystem, this remastered edition features a new mix and includes two sleazy 1980 tracks, 'Thief of Love' and 'Make It Come Loose.' Another great tribute to a great artist.

Review: School Daze is a killer compilation put together by the Dark Entries label and the Honey Soundsystem crew, collating some of the early recordings produced by Patrick Cowley in the years between 1973-81 and were later used as soundtrack material in two gay porn films. You will probably know Cowley for his Hi-NRG output or 'that' Donna Summer remix or his behind the buttons work on Sylvester tracks. Be prepared for a surprise (well quite a few as the 'explicit content' warning on the cover lives up to its billing) as this collection presents Cowley as a producer capable of many styles and moods. The closest School Daze comes to the sound Cowley is most identified is opening track "Zygote" and from here the collection runs through primitive electronics, short bursts of wave and more with a few extended gems that highlight Cowley's talent for arrangement. One of the compilations of the year!

Review: First released in 1981 in the wake of the muscular, robo-disco epics 'Megatron Man' and 'Menergy', 'Get a Little' has long been one of Patrick Cowley's most underrated singles - or at least far-less celebrated. As this reissue proves, the track has lost none of its lustre over the years. A full-vocal number featuring a super-catchy chorus, the original mix (B1) and contemporaneous remix (B2) sit somewhere between electrofunk, Cowley's own brand of electronic disco and what we'd now call Italo-disco. It's a far-sighted sound that still sounds fresh all these years on. The A-side of this edition also boasts two contemporary updates from Alan Dixon, who adds subtly beefed-up house beats and a tidy nu-disco feel on both the 'Love Attack' and 'DJ Friendly Mix' variations.

Review: Buffalo, New York born artist Patrick Cowley is well known as one of the most revolutionary and influential figures in electronic dance music of the seventies and eighties. He studied it in San Fran at the City College of San Francisco then mastered it in the studio over the ensuing decades. Megatron Man was his second studio album , released in 1981, and is a standout of the era thanks to the gliding and funky main tune 'Get A Little' with its great use of vocoder. The rest of the record in true Cowley fashion takes in hi-nrg disco, slow cosmic, electronic funk and boogie all with an erotic and libidinous overtone.

Review: Having previously impressed with their reissue of Patrick Cowley's brilliant, all-synthesizer soundtrack to obscure '70s gay porn flick School Daze, Dark Entries and Honey Sound System once again join forces to shine a light on the high energy disco pioneer's work for San Francisco's Fox Studios. Unsurprisingly, it's another impressive collection, and features material recorded for a number of different pornographic films. There are naturally more up-tempo moments - see "Somebody To Love Tonight", which would later be re-recorded with Sylvester, and the synth-weirdness-meets-jazz-funk brilliance of "5oz of Funk" - but it's the impressively cosmic and exotic ambient moments, such as the stand-out "Timelink" and "Jungle Magic", that really stand out.

Review: Having previously impressed with their reissue of Patrick Cowley's brilliant, all-synthesizer soundtrack to obscure '70s gay porn flick School Daze, Dark Entries and Honey Sound System once again join forces to shine a light on the high energy disco pioneer's work for San Francisco's Fox Studios. Unsurprisingly, it's another impressive collection, and features material recorded for a number of different pornographic films. There are naturally more up-tempo moments - see "Somebody To Love Tonight", which would later be re-recorded with Sylvester, and the synth-weirdness-meets-jazz-funk brilliance of "5oz of Funk" - but it's the impressively cosmic and exotic ambient moments, such as the stand-out "Timelink" and "Jungle Magic", that really stand out.

Review: It's an oldie but a goodie; Patrick Cowley and Sylvester's 1982 electronic disco classic 'Do You Wanna Funk' receives another worthy vinyl repress featuring two timeless remixes. The two versions on the A side are the most commonly heard ones, with Sylvester's unmistakeable falsetto underpinned by Cowley's adrenaline fuelled and trance inducing production. Over on the flip, we have the sweltering disco inferno of 'Don't Stop'.

Notes: Mechanical Fantasy Box is Cowley's homoerotic journal, or as he called it, "graphic accounts of one man's sex life." The journal begins in 1974 and ends in 1980 on his 30th birthday. It chronicles his slow rise to fame from lighting technician at The City Disco to crafting a ground-breaking 16-minute remix of Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" to performing with Sylvester at the SF Opera House. Vivid descriptions are told of cruising in '70s SoMA sex venues to primal highs in Buena Vista Park and composing pornophonics in his Castro apartment. The entries are introspective and show a very out-front, alive person going through the throes of gay liberation post-Stonewall.

French-born artist and Berlin resident Gwenael Rattke works in collage, silkscreen, photography and Xerox graphics. Rattke's collage works borrow from the visual codes of the 60s and 70s. Intricate, ornamental and excessive, they present "an imagined past fired with beauty and sexual freedom." For this book Rattke created 25 original illustrations inspired by selected entries, 3 street maps documenting locations mentioned herein and 4 collages of photos, ephemera and notes Patrick stuffed inside the journal. We've included Patrick's doodles too, as well as introductory essays by Josh Cheon, Theresa McGinley and Jorge Socarras.