Erlend Øye: DJ-Kicks

"Disco dub" might seem like a hypothetical movement dreamed up by a savvy copywriter, but lots of disco's weirder champions plied techniques used by their reggae-mutating '70s peers. Crafting makeshift remixes with reel-to-reel tape machines and turntables not yet recognized as certifiable instruments, DJ/producers like Larry Levan and Walter Gibbons stretched disco into realms far removed from the glitzy anthems heard on oldies radio. A few recent compilations have gathered some of the pieces, but a better working lesson comes by way of Chicken Lips' addition to the DJ-Kicks mix series. London's answer to disco-wise New York production duo The DFA, Chicken Lips favors the kind of disco that can move a dance floor with little more than a bassline and a few handclaps. The tracks on DJ-Kicks trail ribbons of echo and spangly synth effects, but most of them come from an everything-goes '70s and '80s era when different sounds shared space in the same club. Jimmy Spicer's "The Bubble Bunch" marks a vanishing point for the history of hip-hop and house, while Nina Hagen's "African Reggae" mimics reggae with primitive electronic ties to a period when mimicking reggae made perfectly good sense. Chicken Lips prioritizes history over the present day, but the way old and new tracks mesh illuminates a past still working toward its proper due. Disco godhead Levan appears via a mix of Gwen Guthrie's "Seventh Heaven," which runs electric-bass pops over primitive beat breaks that unfold like a clacking ladder. A dubby mix of The Paul Simpson Connection's "Treat Me" shows disco passing the baton to electro in the early '80s. The three guys in Chicken Lips measure in with three sharp tracks of their own, including the sauntering death-disco dirge "Wind Ya Neck In," but their presence never goes unnoticed throughout a mix so smartly selected and pointedly preserved.