ILMiXor

ILM's 2005 collaborative mix project hoonja-doonja!

March 29, 2005

USA-European Connection, "Come Into My Heart (extended album version)"



Pioneering dance music producer/arranger Boris Midney was among the principal architects of the Eurodisco sound. One of the first to exploit the full potential of 48-track recording, his trademark blend of strings, horn and percussion created a sound as deep and lush as any heard during the disco era. Born in Russia, Midney was a classically-trained composer who started out writing film scores; turning to disco, however, he discovered his true calling. Working under a number of guises he produced an enormously prolific body of work from his New York City studio ERAS. He first came to American prominence with USA-European Connection. The concept was simple, take lush female vocals and arrangements (done USA style) and place them over swirling strings, and incessant synthesized beats (Euro style) and you have a hit.
--from DiscoMuseum.com's USA-European Connection page

This sort of maximalism seems like it was tailor-made for me and me alone: the string and voice arrangements that could only come from the crinkled, sweaty brow of an overzealous conservatory crank; the ambitious, proggy build, striving madly upward into a ceilingless sky; the shameful devaluation by its branding as "disco," dissociating it from less frivolous musics while it makes no secret about its gleeful acceptance of an ever-renewing subscription to pop purgatory, where repetition is a social experiment rather than an end in itself, an invitation to action rather than a series of measured tones or Danish chairs or whathaveyou. Steely Dan would disapprove (oh, they were reluctantly pro-disco and even stole a few ideas when they remembered to have their ears cocked), but towards the end of "Come Into My Heart," when the dancing has been done and we start prepping the long fadeout with jammy rock solos, there are a coupla turns by whichever out-of-work pianist and guitarist were on hand, and it's like I've stumbled into the dark and muggy Aja comedown room cuz I'd swear it was Victor Feldman and Larry Carlton bringing a little class to the class. I'd like to think of it as Midney's gift to trainspotter maximalists like me, who've stayed the course and continued to dance alone to an empty room (whether a bedroom or a club long after all comers have gone).

   
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