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Recently I was already deep into a R_co rabbit hole that I dug while working on a review of a new Frankie Knuckles mix when Reader digital content editor Tal Rosenberg hit me up on Gchat and ordered me to stop whatever I was doing and listen to a 1974 mixtape that pioneering disco DJ, producer, and all-around behind-the-scenes guy Tom Moulton had made for the Sandpiper nightclub on Fire Island. For dance-music historians it was like finding out that someone had posted photos of the One True Grail on their Tumblr.
Needless to say it's a fantastic mix, superdeep and organically funky. Moulton got his start in the record biz at the King label, where James Brown spent the early years of his career, and he helped introduce ideas like extended remixes, 12-inch singles, and beat-blended DJ sets that would form the foundations of dance music's machine-assisted near future.
If you're having a party this weekend maybe you should just consider at some point switching over from your iTunes "PAR-TAY TIME" playlist and give this a spin.
If you want to get deeper into Tom Moulton, NPR has this great profile/interview by Michaelangelo Matos (you can also try to track down Soul Jazz's excellent compilation from 2006, though import prices on Amazon are currently going for upwards of $70). And if you want to know more about the mysterious R_co (spoiler alert: he's not a pro DJ, just an extremely enthusiastic German techno fan) you can check out this brief but entertaining interview.
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