A world of (disco and more) sounds from Athens of the North
March 5, 2018 1:23 PM   Subscribe

Need a little pick-me-up today? Try some proper rare vintage soul and disco from the label Athens of the North, a nickname for Edinburgh, Scotland, where the label is based. Euan Fryer, label head, talked about his favorite releases from his label with The Vinyl Factory back in 2015. Since then they've branched out farther, for instance two albums by Hampshire & Foat, one of nocturnal jazz bliss and and the other of hypnotic ambient folk sounds for a fictional fairy tale book, Galaxies like Grains of Sand and The Honeybear, respectively. Or just poke around their collection on Bandcamp and find your own jams.
posted by filthy light thief (6 comments total) 27 users marked this as a favorite
 
Oh man, I think I recognize some of those singles. I used to DJ disco, and I totally saw AOTN records, but never knew what they were. Neat!
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 1:26 PM on March 5, 2018


Reykjavik of the South.
posted by matthewr at 1:59 PM on March 5, 2018 [1 favorite]


Cumbernauld of the East.
posted by scruss at 2:23 PM on March 5, 2018


Motown of the Other Side of the Pond? Or Philly?
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:43 PM on March 5, 2018


Hell yeah! ”You Can Win” by Bileo is a fucking badass tune. I collect old 45s and the original of this is on my someday wishlist (its $$ and doesn’t come up often!)
posted by sucre at 4:43 PM on March 5, 2018


It's taking me a while to get under the skin of Edinburgh, which is of course not one place at all, and of the eastern end of the Central Belt in general. Time seems jumbled up, much like in Roadside Picnic, with some moments millennia long and others changing faster than the eye can follow. Hampshire & Foat (that name's a hard sell) seems a good match to the way that a lot of the industrial landscape has been erased and replaced with artificial natural (you can get a good sense of this with some of the short videos that the Inner Forth Landscape Initiative has produced.)

No conclusions yet. Investigations continue.
posted by Devonian at 1:19 AM on March 6, 2018 [2 favorites]


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