New York City’s underground club lineage has been under siege from rampant gentrification this century, after starting over 40 years ago with The Loft, then Gallery, Paradise Garage and other disco infernos where attitudes and musical restrictions were left at the door in favour of celebrating the endless party. Veteran DJs Francois Kevorkian, Joe Claussell and Danny Krivit managed to host their weekly Body & Soul parties at Club Vinyl’s warehouse space in downtown Manhattan until 2002, going on to hold special events in the city, taking them around the world with great success.
The trio have always insisted on musical freedom, meaning anything from drum’n’bass to Whitney Houston could be weaved into the soulful house and disco evergreen. The mark of a good club compilation is to feel the atmosphere coursing through the selection; here, the rising steam is almost tangible over two discs compiled by the trio, including Soft House Company, Bang The Party, Tribal House, Hugh Masekala, DJ Duke, Vince Watson, Larry Levan remixing Esther Williams, 808 State, Coldcut, Sounds of Blackness, Instant Funk and James Brown. Deep, tribal and spiritual, it sounds like the last club on Earth having its final euphoric shout: every track an anthemic evocation of a vanished time.
