Tullio De Piscopo - Stop Bajon

Tullio De Piscopo's 'Stop Bajon' is a departure from the synthesizer-dominated tracks I have been featuring but it has a sensuous groove that I couldn't resist sharing here. A drummer who cut his teeth in jazz and fusion combos, he released some forward thinking material in the late 70s, and played drums on Kano's 'It's a War' and 'Super Extra Sexy Sign.'



Tullio De Piscopo - Stop Bajon 'Stop Bajon's' soulful pulse has a swing and laid back nature not found in a lot of songs that are considered 'Italo Disco' but his style has been grouped under that umbrella due to the fact that he is Italian and he unquestionably had a strong funk and disco influences. Regardless, this song is easy on the ears.

Tullio De Piscopo - Stop Bajon (download)

FlowChart - Ask the Boss

Flowchart - Ask The Boss

My attention had been drawn to ZYX Records recently after doing a discogs search for Flow Chart's "Go Ask the Boss," a disco drenched I tune from 1983. I was a little confused by their seemingly massive reach over Italo releases on discogs but a little more research realized that ZYX did a lot of compilations, best of, and re-releases over the years. So it turns out that "Ask the Boss" was originally released on Maximus. Well, Maximus delivered some serious funky disco cuts. And so my schizo post that was supposed to be a focused survey on a record label has descended into a random assorted selection of stuff.



Regardless of whether they released the originals, the list on ZYX's discogs page is a good sweeping survey of some of the greatest Italo tracks ever, as well as some more obscure ones. Just put some of those titles into youtube and let it rip.

Flowchart - Ask the Boss (download)

Mike Mareen - Master of Espionage

Mike Mareen - Agent of Liberty

Mike Mareen sure has a thing for espionage. Here are two tracks of his that illustrate my point. There is a pretty thorough bio of him on discogs that I have included here.

"Mike Mareen was born on November, 9th 1949 in Berlin (West Germany). First, he was a drummer, but later he was the singer of the group Cemetery Institution (non-disco) and performed in Hamburg´s legendary 'Star Club', where The Beatles used to play in their beginnings.

Then he became a sailor, went to New York and spent some years there. Back in Germany again, he released his biggest success hit "Love Spy" in 1986, followed by "Dancing In The Dark" and "Agent Of Liberty", a great disco track as well. In the same year Mike released his first album entitled: "Dance Control". After one year later in 1987 he released his second album called: "Let's Start Now". This album included his new super-hit: "Don't Talk To The Snake". Both albums were released by well-known Germany Label Zyx Records.

Apart of Mike Mareen, he also sang using pseudonyms like Amadeus Liszt with such smash hits like: "Win The Race" and "The Devil Win", but his successful career have been with the Mike Mareen releases."



Mike Mareen - Love Spy

Mike Marren - Agent of Liberty (download)

Tony Carrasco, Miko Mission and More

Tony Carrasco is a well establish dance producer who made a name for himself in the Italo Disco scene in the 1980s and is still busy making tracks today. A New York native who spent a lot of time in Italy he has been around since the final days of disco. Among his most memorable tracks include Miko Mission's greatest hits "How Old Are You?" and "The World is You," Klein & MBO's "Dirty Talk" and more. He also produced another one of my favorites "Call Me Mr. Telephone" which was first recorded by Answering Service in 1984 but later made famous by West-Indian singer Cheyne in 1985.


Miko Mission - The World is You (download)