CC:DISCO!, real name Courtney Clarke, has been hopelessly lost in music since her teen years. Her journey began in Melbourne, Australia, where she discovered the glorious depths of dance music through a concert of Aussie pioneers Itchy & Scratchy. Her brain exploded, she recalls, and something deep inside her became enchanted with the “the loving, caring vibe“—people dancing, hugging, and even crying. Immediately she knew that she wanted to make people feel like that, so she began traversing record stores the world over in search of disco, house, and boogie cuts sure to brighten up any dancefloor. As she began to present her discoveries in clubs and via the radio, she began to realise that much of her collection stems from 1983. “I’ve always been obsessed by music that came out then [in 1983],” she says. “It was a real melting pot between so many new genres that were just about to explode. Boogie and Italo being the main ones, but also freestyle was flying into the mix during this year.”

Clarke bases herself in Lisbon, Portugal, where she’s been enjoying some downtime after a breakout few years. In 2018, she curated First Light, a compilation that profiled some of her favorite electronic artists from Australia and New Zealand, and she’s just delivered the second volume, covering a much wider spread of producers. Both releases came out on Soothsayer. She’s also taken the time to do something she’s been eager to do for a long time: compile a mix pulling out some of her favorite records from her favorite year—when “the big huge fast disco stompers were starting to fade and producers were going to more slick produced, drum machine boogie-style disco,” she recalls. “This meant tempos came down and groove was more the focus than using huge synth bass lines.” This is going to be first of many “year in focus” mixes from Clarke, and it’s absolutely full of funk.

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Tracklisting:

01. Eddie Jobson & Zinc “Colour Code” (Capitol Records)
02. Hatz “T’As Meme Pas Voulu” (Epic Records)
03. Venus “Strange How You Move” (Vak)
04. Shawne Jackson “Loveline” (Instrumental) (Loose End Records)
05. James Ingram “Try Your Love Again” (Qwest Records)
06. Maurice Starr “Keep on Dreamin” (Arista)
07. Pieces of a Dream “Fo Fi Fo” (Elektra)
08. Vee Allan “Love Don’t Wait” (Club Mix) (MCA Records)
09. Paradise “One mind, Two Hearts” (Priority Records)
10. Shirley Lites “Heat You Up (Melt You Down)” (Instrumental) (West End)
11. Sapphire “Make Love to the Music (Becket Records)
12. Paul Sabu “Shotgun” (Instrumental) (Arial)
13. Ashye “Electricity” (Record Shack Records)
14. Ebony Brothers “Brighten Up Your Night” (Rahaan edit) (Street Edits)
15. Pablos Group “Experience” (Duriam)
16. Gary Low “I Want You” (Romain Bezzina Edit) (OG Cat Records)
17. Tia Monae “Don’t Keep Me Waiting” (First Take Records)
18. Ernest Raglin “In the Rain” (Vista Sounds)
19. Kashif “Help Yourself to My Love” (Arista)