Cerrone - The Best of Cerrone Productions

With disco heading towards its big 40th birthday, its stock has never been higher. The genre is deeply set into modern day European electronic music; Patrick Cowley has finally been assigned the pioneer status he was reaching prior to his death in the early '80s and Daft Punk’s most overt reference to Giorgio Moroder in a career full of them ("Giorgio by Moroder" on their 2013 LP Random Access Memories) rebooted his dormant career to the extent that he’s started a DJ career in his mid-seventies, and is due to drop his first album for over 30 years (beat that, Kevin Shields).

So where does French producer Cerrone fit into this? Well, he was there at the beginning. His “Love in C Minor” came just six months after Moroder’s first significant disco track, “Love to Love you Baby” with his muse Donna Summer, but Cerrone’s stock was and mysteriously remains much lower than Giorgio's icy futurism and Cowley’s backroom NRG. The cheesy videos and sexist cover art didn’t help (lamentably, that remains with this compilation), but what this collection does point out is that a less synthetic production ethic resulted in lush instrumentation with live percussion (he’s a drummer), and thick basslines that have become house music staples.

Back to the opening point, this collection falls down by the butchering of track length. Many of the original versions went over the 10 minute mark, but here we have them basically cut in half, and it’s a pointless exercise. Let's put it into perspective - have you ever got off on an edit of "Fools Gold", "Soon", "There goes the Fear" or "I Feel Love"? No way, these tracks are just getting going then. The musky lust of “Call Me Tonight” is only just completing its aural foreplay before it fades out, and it's the same with stone cold classic "Supernature" (which named Goldfrapp’s 2006 album and is also copied, almost riff by riff, by Daft Punk on the aforementioned “Giorgio by Moroder”), wherejust as the swirling riff starts to transport the track to its psych-tronic climax, it pointlessly fades out.

What this collection does offer in return is a collection of his production work. “Phonic” by Cristal is a sci-fi retake of “Magic Fly” by Space (the French disco act, not the dodgy scouse Britpop band) and “Africanism” by his first band Kongas is a robust, tribal cover of Spencer Davis Group’s “Gimme Some Lovin”, while the guitar heavy cover of The Animals’ “House of The Rising Sun” is camp, porny, ridiculous and cool.

Of course, as the disco boom died down, so did the careers of the majority of disco artists, Cerrone attempted to branch out into the then new sounds of rap music - check the sickly “Club Underworld” s failure to make “Rappers Delight” into a 4/4 dance track, or rather not.

This collection would lead you to believe that the best of Cerrone is nothing more than a bunch of disposable pop tracks. No way - “Give Me Love”, “Rocket In The Pocket”, “Je Suis Music”, and the aforementioned “Supernature” are some of the greatest ever disco tunes, but instead of the neutered versions on offer here, head to the full sacked swag of the originals.