The J.P. Massiera & Bernard Torelli freaky deaky French madness continues with a 1982 Italian remix of the 1981 single by the duo called Misa Criolla. The original track is an an adaption of the ‘Gloria’ hymn section of Misa Criolla, written in 1964 by Argentine composer Ariel Ramírez as a non-Latin catholic mass combining Spanish text with indigenous Argentinean instruments and rhythms.

It was first released in 1981 as a 7 inch single on the Général Music France record label under the artist name Usted Del Fuego (see separate post for the other single release by Massiera & Torelli under this name) and then subsequently released in both 7 inch & 12 inch form by Montage Records in Canada and America (for this release the Usted Del part of the name was dropped). (more…)

In 1981 our two favourite French sonic cosmonauts J.P. Massiera & his half-brother Bernard Torelli released two singles on the label Général Music France using  the artist name Usted Del Fuego. Perhaps the more well known of the two releases is Misa Criolla, an adaption of the ‘gloria’ hymn  by Ariel Ramírez. The other single is Cancion Del Fuego and though credited to Massiera and Torelli on the record label, it seems to be an adaption of the twelth movement from the ballet El Amor Brujo by Manuel de Falla written in 1915. 

According to the sleeve notes, the track appeared on the soundtrack to the 1982 French film Espion, lève-toi directed by Yves Boisset. The film itself, a political thriller has been described as a cross between the Alan J Pakula 1974 conspiracy-noir The Parallax View and the John Frankenheimer original The Manchurian Candidate. As these are two of my all time favourite films, I have wanted to see Espion, lève-toi for quite a while. (more…)

“For Herman’s Rocket and Venus Gang the tracks were composed with mixes of delirious voices and moogs. Musicians and singers improvised totally. Afterward I added “theme” gimmicks and different mixes keeping it fresh and unplanned.” – J.P.Massiera

This is the first post from the saucer people in England and I would like to thank everyone at Overfitting Disco for giving me the opportunity to share some of the tracks that I love with an audience who really appreciate the truly strange and disorientating beauty of what we call “disco music“.

If you look back through the hundreds of tracks posted here since its inception in late 2007 (as I have done trying to find records that have not already been posted!) you will find such a diverse collection of musical styles & genres, often spanning decades. Yet amongst all this diversity one can almost discern a hidden thread running through each individual track as though on some deep fractal, non-local level they are all connected to each other.

What this mysterious connection is exactly, it’s hard to say and instead perhaps we should simply think of Overfitting Disco as a metaphorical akashic jukebox or maybe, just maybe, a quite literal hall of records!

Herman’s Rocket – Transport Mission Security [1977]

Herman’s Rocket – Hanged In Univers [1977]

Anyway, on with the music, that’s why you are here after all and as you can see from above, I have chosen two tracks from the 1977 Herman’s Rocket album Space Woman on the Disques Ibach label by the legendary cosmic space duo J.P. Massiera and Bernard Torelli.

If the first track Transport Mission Security (co-written with Disques Ibach’s founder and label boss H. Goldera AKA Humbert Petrucci) sounds familiar, it should as it uses the same drum pattern and distorted vocals as the more well known Space Woman track (posted elsewhere at Overfitting) but when a song’s structure is that good, its worth recycling. The second track Hanged In Univers (and no that’s not a spelling mistake though I wish it was as I have always wanted to drop an ‘e’ at the end of the universe) is the real killer sound for me, pounding four to the floor beat, driving bassline and glossolalia wailing space banshees, what more could a space woman or man want?