Tags: Hi-NRG

Review: Dark Entries is humbled to continue digging through the archives of legendary producer Patrick Cowley. While best known for his production on chart-topping cybernetic disco anthems such as Sylvester's 'You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)' or his own 'Menergy', Cowley, who passed away from AIDS-related illness in 1982, left us with a substantial body of work. Since 2009, Dark Entries has been working with Cowley's friends and family to shed light on the lesser known facets of this singular artist's output. This has resulted in a string of celebrated archival albums, including Catholic (featuring Jorge Socarras), School Daze, Muscle Up, Afternooners, and the recent Mechanical Fantasy Box. Some Funkettes, the latest addition to this series, is a collection of previously unreleased cover songs recorded from 1975-1977. These raw, unembellished tributes both showcase Cowley's early musical interests and chart the development of his production techniques.

Review: Gay anthems don't come louder or prouder than this evergreen gem from Patrick Cowley and Sylvester. Originally released in 1981, just a year before Cowley's tragic death but heralding the arrival of the Hi-NRG era of electronic disco, it's as brilliant and visionary now as it was at its inception. Now the classic gets a respectful re-touch from Purple Disco Machine, who offers up vocal and instrumental versions on the A side before three original versions stretch out on the flip. The difference between the remixes and originals is subtle, but with ingredients this potent, who's to complain when setting the party aflame?

Review: Best known for producing chart-topping disco anthems like the Sylvester-fronted 'Do You Wanna Funk?' - that still crop up in DJs like Juan Atkins' sets to this day, Cowley died in 1982 due to an AIDS-related illness. He left an incredible body of work but since 2009, the Dark Entries label has been working with Cowley's friends and family to uncover the singular artist's lesser-known sides such as his soundtracks for gay pornographic films. Malebox brings us six more recent discoveries from the hidden archives, very much in the churning disco-funk and hi-NRG areas that we've come to know and love as trademark Cowley. Recorded from 1979-1981, one of Patrick's most creatively exciting periods, this bumper pack includes early Paul Parker demos 'If You Feel It' and 'Love Me Hot', a demo version of 'Low Down Dirty Rhythm' with Jeanie Tracy's vocals, plus 'Floating', 'Love and Passion' and 'A Wicked Tool', all infectious and brimming with joyfulness and futuristic exploration. Also included is an air mail envelope containing a letter from Patrick Cowley to French disco producer Pierre Jaubert as well as liner notes and hand-written lyrics. Malebox will be released on November 12, the 40th anniversary of Patrick's passing.

Review: It's an oldie but a goodie; Patrick Cowley and Sylvester's 1982 electronic disco classic 'Do You Wanna Funk' receives another worthy vinyl repress featuring two timeless remixes. The two versions on the A side are the most commonly heard ones, with Sylvester's unmistakeable falsetto underpinned by Cowley's adrenaline fuelled and trance inducing production. Over on the flip, we have the sweltering disco inferno of 'Don't Stop'.

Review: Patrick Cowley was one of the most revolutionary and influential figures in the canon of electronic dance music. Born in Buffalo, NY on October 19, 1950, Patrick moved to San Francisco in 1971 to study electronic music at the City College of San Francisco. By the late '70s, Patrick's synthesizer techniques landed him a job composing and producing songs for disco diva Sylvester, including #1 hit "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)". Cowley created his own brand of peak-time party music known as Hi-NRG, also dubbed "The San Francisco Sound." By 1981 Patrick had released a string of his own dance 12? singles, such as "Menergy" and "Megatron Man". That year, he co-founded Megatone Records to release his debut album Megatron Man. Meanwhile, Patrick was hospitalized and diagnosed with an unknown illness, which would later be named AIDS. Recovering for a spell, in 1982 he composed two more #1 hits, "Do You Wanna Funk" for Sylvester, and "Right On Target" for Paul Parker, as well as a second solo album Mind Warp. His life was cut short on November 12, 1982, when he passed away two weeks after his 32nd birthday from AIDS-related illness.
Mechanical Fantasy Box is a new collection of 13 unreleased songs recorded between 1973-80 released in tandem with Cowley's homoerotic journal of the same title. What you hold in your hand is a collection of Cowley's work from the years preceding his meteoric rise as a pioneer of Hi-NRG dance music. This was before drum machines. Before programmable, polyphonic digital synthesis, this is experimental music in every sense. Sounds flows from funk to kraut to psychedelic ambient electronics inspired by Tomita and Kraftwerk. As David Diebold stated in Tribal Rites, "Patrick Cowley parted the veil and entered a dark world of forbidden forces, wondrous musical panoramas and bold, strident, hopeful possibilities. Patrick brought the future to us and laid it at our feet."
Some songs were mixed from 4-track stems by Joe Tarantino and all songs have been remastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studio in Berkeley, CA. The vinyl comes housed in a black and white gatefold jacket designed by Gwenael Rattke featuring a photograph by Susan Middleton, liner notes by bandmate Maurice Tani and an 8.5x11 insert with notes.

Proceeds from Mechanical Fantasy Box will be donated to the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, who have been committed to ending the pandemic and human suffering caused by HIV since 1982.

Review: Having previously impressed with their reissue of Patrick Cowley's brilliant, all-synthesizer soundtrack to obscure '70s gay porn flick School Daze, Dark Entries and Honey Sound System once again join forces to shine a light on the high energy disco pioneer's work for San Francisco's Fox Studios. Unsurprisingly, it's another impressive collection, and features material recorded for a number of different pornographic films. There are naturally more up-tempo moments - see "Somebody To Love Tonight", which would later be re-recorded with Sylvester, and the synth-weirdness-meets-jazz-funk brilliance of "5oz of Funk" - but it's the impressively cosmic and exotic ambient moments, such as the stand-out "Timelink" and "Jungle Magic", that really stand out.

Review: Disco producer, synthesizer pioneer and Hi-NRG originator Patrick Cowley made a lot of highly sexual music. In fact, his muscular synth-disco productions were, for years, the soundtrack of choice in San Francisco's notorious bathhouse scene. It doesn't stop there, though. Unbeknownst to most disco aficionados, Cowley also provided experimental synthesizer tracks to soundtrack gay porn films between 1973 and 1981. Initially released on vinyl last year, School Daze has now been granted a CD edition by Dark Entries and gathers together the best of those productions. Arguably, the material here is amongst his best work. Free of the constraints of the dancefloor, Cowley let himself go, delivering avant garde synthesizer compositions that ranged from spaciously psychedelic ("Out of Body", like some lost Confused House record) and decidedly cosmic (the chugging "Journey Home"), to otherworldly and outlandish ("Zygote"). Recommended.

Review: The final part of Dark Entries' long-running series of archival Patrick Cowley releases showcases tracks originally recorded for Afternooners, a late '70s gay porn film by director John Coletti. As with previous Cowley releases on Dark Entries, the double album also contains previously unheard material rediscovered from the Fox Studio archives. It's another essential collection of atmospheric synthesizer music in the producer's distinctive style, all told, with tracks ranging from the whistling cheeriness of "Hot Beach" and the sparkling, cowbell-laden throb of "One Hot Afternoon" to the dubbed-out, semi-ambient dreaminess of "Bore & Stroke" and the humid, upbeat "Jungle Orchid".

Review: First released in 1981 in the wake of the muscular, robo-disco epics 'Megatron Man' and 'Menergy', 'Get a Little' has long been one of Patrick Cowley's most underrated singles - or at least far-less celebrated. As this reissue proves, the track has lost none of its lustre over the years. A full-vocal number featuring a super-catchy chorus, the original mix (B1) and contemporaneous remix (B2) sit somewhere between electrofunk, Cowley's own brand of electronic disco and what we'd now call Italo-disco. It's a far-sighted sound that still sounds fresh all these years on. The A-side of this edition also boasts two contemporary updates from Alan Dixon, who adds subtly beefed-up house beats and a tidy nu-disco feel on both the 'Love Attack' and 'DJ Friendly Mix' variations.

Review: Buffalo, New York born artist Patrick Cowley is well known as one of the most revolutionary and influential figures in electronic dance music of the seventies and eighties. He studied it in San Fran at the City College of San Francisco then mastered it in the studio over the ensuing decades. Megatron Man was his second studio album , released in 1981, and is a standout of the era thanks to the gliding and funky main tune 'Get A Little' with its great use of vocoder. The rest of the record in true Cowley fashion takes in hi-nrg disco, slow cosmic, electronic funk and boogie all with an erotic and libidinous overtone.

Review: Dark Entries has assembled a superb collection of covers celebrating 60s garage and soul music by the one and only Patrick Cowley. This LP showcases another side of the great producer's diverse influences, in particular his psychedelic San Francisco roots which can be heard in most tracks. They were mostly written between 1980 and 1982 when he was in prolific form and highlight his virtuosity while paying respects to the music that shaped him. The collection features a reimagined version of Loverde's 'Iko Iko,' a hi-NRG cover of The Doors' '20th Century Fox,' and a haunting take on The Who's "Shakin' All Over." It concludes with a swinging rendition of the Four Tops' 'Baby I Need Your Loving' and is another essential one for the collection.

Review: The excellent Dark Entries returns to shine a spotlight on the legend that is Patrick Cowley with a newly remastered release of 'Kickin' In.' Although Cowley left behind an extensive archive of unreleased work, Dark Entries has honoured his legacy with many great previous releases. This one came about after Cowley heard rising star Frank Loverde perform at San Fran's The City, a disco cabaret, and invited him, Linda Imperial, and Peggy Gibbons to collaborate on recordings. The result was a nine-minute cybernetic disco anthem embodying Cowley's hi-NRG style. Originally released in 2015 by Honey Soundsystem, this remastered edition features a new mix and includes two sleazy 1980 tracks, 'Thief of Love' and 'Make It Come Loose.' Another great tribute to a great artist.

Review: During their continuing trawls through Patrick Cowley's archives, Dark Entries has uncovered a string of cover versions that the late, great San Francisco-based producer recorded between 1974 and '77. They've now decided to gather them together on Some Funkettes, a synthesizer-fired set that more than lives up to its title. Perhaps the most headline-grabbing number is a 10-minute re-creation of Donna Summer's Giorgio Moroder-produced electro-disco masterpiece, 'I Feel Love' - a record that Cowley famously remixed, but here re-imagines as a more spacey instrumental workout - but there's plenty elsewhere across the CD that's arguably even better. For proof, check Cowley's colourful synth-funk versions of 'Papa Was a Rolling Stone' and 'Do It Any Way You Wanna', and his brilliant interpretations of Herbie Hancock's 'Chameleon' (here re-named 'Spiked Punch').

Review: Having previously produced two tidy remixes of overlooked Patrick Cowley gem 'Get a Little', Alan Dixon has returned to the late, great producer's catalogue in order to rework another lesser-celebrated cut. This time round, he's turned his hand to Megatron Man album track, 'Lift Off', a typically throbbing, muscular vocal number that sits somewhere between thrusting robo-disco, sparkling electrofunk and synth-pop. Dixon first adds a little low-end grunt on the re-edit style 'Love Attack Mix', before delivering a sturdier and easier-to-mix 'DJ Friendly version'. On the flip you'll find Cowley's original and a rare, club-ready remix from the early '80s.

Review: Best known for producing chart-topping disco anthems like the Sylvester-fronted 'Do You Wanna Funk?' - that still crop up in DJs like Juan Atkins' sets to this day, Cowley died in 1982 due to an AIDS-related illness. He left an incredible body of work but since 2009, the Dark Entries label has been working with Cowley's friends and family to uncover the singular artist's lesser-known sides such as his soundtracks for gay pornographic films. Malebox brings us six more recent discoveries from the hidden archives, very much in the churning disco-funk and hi-NRG areas that we've come to know and love as trademark Cowley. Recorded from 1979-1981, one of Patrick's most creatively exciting periods, this bumper pack includes early Paul Parker demos 'If You Feel It' and 'Love Me Hot', a demo version of 'Low Down Dirty Rhythm' with Jeanie Tracy's vocals, plus 'Floating', 'Love and Passion' and 'A Wicked Tool', all infectious and brimming with joyfulness and futuristic exploration. Also included is an air mail envelope containing a letter from Patrick Cowley to French disco producer Pierre Jaubert as well as liner notes and hand-written lyrics. Malebox will be released on November 12, the 40th anniversary of Patrick's passing.

Review: Much loved and hugely influential disco maestro Patrick Cowley is back on regular home label Dark Entries with From Behind. The label has done much great work to highlight his indelible contribution to the world of disco after he left a remarkable legacy before his death in 1982 from AIDS-related illness. Known for his chart-topping disco hits, this one is a collection of vibrant covers of 60s garage and soul classics recorded during his prolific period from 1980 to 1982. From Behind then is full of all of Cowley's influences and blends psychedelic sounds into dancefloor-ready tracks that honour the songs that shaped him. The album arrives on both CD as here, but also vinyl, complete with great artwork.

Review: ***B-STOCK: not in original plastic sleeve but otherwise in excellent condition***


Gay anthems don't come louder or prouder than this evergreen gem from Patrick Cowley and Sylvester. Originally released in 1981, just a year before Cowley's tragic death but heralding the arrival of the Hi-NRG era of electronic disco, it's as brilliant and visionary now as it was at its inception. Now the classic gets a respectful re-touch from Purple Disco Machine, who offers up vocal and instrumental versions on the A side before three original versions stretch out on the flip. The difference between the remixes and originals is subtle, but with ingredients this potent, who's to complain when setting the party aflame?