Compiled by DJ and Soundway Records manager Alice Whittington, aka Norsicaa, Ayo Ke Disco is a snapshot of disco, funk and soul-inflected pop from the clubs of Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong and the Philippines in the 1970s and 80s. The ten tracks hand-selected by Norsicaa draw on her Malaysian heritage and advocacy for music from this underreported time and place, when traditional music-making met Western styles and electronic instrumentation.
Ayo Ke Disco is the latest in a long series of compilations from London-based label Soundway, presenting a more international alternative to white and Western-centric narratives of pop and rock history. It follows Soundway compilations of earlier musical waves in Southeast Asia – including mid-century Indonesian music and Thai funk and jazz – but other notable successors are Light in the Attic’s Japanese City Pop compilations. Although sourced from different countries, both compilations reflect the optimism of youth culture at the time, originating from increasingly cross-cultural and international scenes, recent economic prosperity and – in Ayo Ke Disco’s case – the recently-won independence of many countries in the region.
This vibrancy oozes from each of the tracks. ‘Disco’ by Indonesian band The Rollies is a cool slice of synth funk with vocodor vocals. On ‘Dahaga’, Malaysian singer Fatimah Razak’s voice is rich with sensuality as she mixes cadences from vocal jazz and Malaysian folk music, backed by an ensemble of horns, electric guitar and gendang. ‘Pinoy Funk’ by Filipino drummer Regalado is maximalist funk built from interweaving instruments, with a central role for the gong chime kulintang. Indonesian rock group The Steps appear twice, backing two straight-up disco bangers: the smooth title track (meaning “let’s go to the disco”) with John Philips, and the more edgy and relentless ‘Kuingin Dekatmu’.
Ayo Ke Disco is clearly a labour of love from Norsicaa, whose research into music from the region and time period is expanded on in an accompanying zine, which provides further context and world-building. This evident passion makes the compilation shine. Putting together a compilation that encompasses such an enormous range of sounds from a large and varied part of the world is always going to be a tough task – even if Ayo Ke Disco were five discs long, it couldn’t scratch the surface of the genres and scenes that she is pulling from. But Ayo Ke Disco is a tantalising taster, and like all good compilations of its kind, it makes the listener want to dig deeper – or dream of an afternoon spent digging through Norsicaa’s record collection.
