The new Cold War has already become somewhat lukewarm and still people dream of a life behind the Iron Curtain. That at least is the impression that you might get when you are faced with a seemingly endless stream of reissues and compilations with music from the GDR underground scene that are accompanied by the ever-same books written by always the same people. But another world was possible even back then. »Socialist Disco. Dancing Behind Yugoslavia’s Velvet Curtain 1977-1987,« originally released through the Rijeka and Zagreb-based label Fox & Friends in 2018 and now finally being repressed, has more in common with the seminal »hallo« series released through Amiga on a musical level while also underlining that Yugoslavia was not at all as isolated and repressive as its comrade up north.
The compilation, expertly curated by label owners Leri Ahel and Zeljko Luketic, is bookended by Zdenka Vučković’s Croatian-language cover of Gloria Gaynor’s »I Will Survive« and a cover of »Vamos a la Playa« by the group Opatijski Suveniri as well as a decidedly cosmic take on Jade’s »I’m Gonna Get Your Love« by Roman Butina, as if to emphasise just how open the Federal Republic was to influences from abroad while staying cheerfully idiosyncratic. And indeed, the 18 tracks are marked by exuberant experimentation and a sense of anarchic subversion even when they emulate the sounds of US-American, European and especially Italian disco music. Krunoslav Slabinac’s funk is positively lysergic, Rok Hotel infuse disco with a unique punk energy and even Yu football star Ivica Šurjak’s »Julija« is wildly fascinating. Leading its listeners from the mostly acoustic early days of the international disco craze to the era of Italo sounds and synth pop mania, »Socialist Disco« opens up a world of joy within an era that is mostly associated with greyscale ambient fear. As a compilation, it’s as evocative and subversive as the best of disco records.
