Hot Classic - - Bacchanale -1970--

— For the collector: Original pressings on the Éros Bleu label command four figures. Reissues are notoriously bad—the 1999 CD edition accidentally removed the bass track. Seek out the 2022 “Unleaked Masters” bootleg for the proper, grimy experience.

Play it loud. Play it late. And for God’s sake, don’t play it sober. Bacchanale -1970-- Hot Classic -

Let’s be clear: this is not background music. From the first crack of a conga that sounds like a hip bone breaking the surface of primordial ooze, Bacchanale grabs you by the lapels of your crushed velvet jacket. A sinuous, fuzzed-out Fender Rhodes line snakes through the mix, while a bass so deep and greasy it must have been recorded in a vat of baby oil holds down a groove that is equal parts Latin heat and avant-garde unease. — For the collector: Original pressings on the

Some records don’t just sound like their era—they sweat it. Bacchanale -1970-- Hot Classic - is precisely that kind of artifact: a molten, leather-and-incense slab of proto-disco hedonism that captures the exact moment when the utopian freak-out of the 1960s collapsed into the slick, strutting nihilism of the early 70s. Play it loud

Is Bacchanale -1970-- Hot Classic - a perfect record? No. It’s too long, too strange, too committed to its own sleaze. But it is a necessary record. It reminds you that dance music was not invented in clubs, but in caves—and that 1970 was the year someone finally figured out how to plug that cave into a Marshall stack.