Space Project - Conquest of the Stars

This was a total surprise. I bought it thinking it was likely a trippy prog rock album, maybe something like Starcastle, although the art wasn't as good. It was a little better than a high school mural, but then again it was kind of cool in a way too. I don't know why I thought of GNIDROLOG and their Lady Lake album but I was only thinking, "long songs, spacey cover, gotta be prog." 

You what they say when you assume.

This ...  was ... disco.

I suppose the thought was, "If Meco can have a disco hit with a Star Wars song, just think what we could achieve with a whole album of space disco!" So Dominic Sciscente, Michel Daigle and J. Lafleche sat around brainstorming, and after a few beers, it was decided they'd need to have a spectacular cover. There needed to be space boobs, and oh and an astronaut, but he needed to have a video camera, and be holding a space shovel and then some other goofy shit. It didn't have to make sense, but it needed to look like something you could spray paint on the side of a van. Oh, yeah it needs to come out on translucent yellow vinyl. The songs needed to be long, long enough to work up a sweat on the dance floor. This was going to be awesome.

The album was recorded in Quebec, and I'm guessing the songwriting team were also French Canadian and rather than sing with an accent they opted to go the instrumental route. I've got to hand it to disco, people weren't above just dancing to the music. Honestly, this is like four little mini soundtracks that run like an overly long credit sequence. I wish I knew why my brain starts making up voice over parts to go with the music when I hear this kind of stuff. It's entertaining to me, but also a little distracting, that and the voice in my head sounds like Bill Swisher the guy who did the speaking part in Boney M.'s "Rasputen" which was also from 1978, but that's just a coincidence ... or is it.

Considering that in 1978 shows like Buck Rogers (Erin Gray in a spandex one-piece, good lord) and even the beloved (to me) Battlestar Galactica weren't exactly ratings juggernaut (did I mention Eric Gray?) it's kind of weird that they figured there was an audience for this. Although it did remind me more of Quark and the bikini twins with the twins ... yeah, I was 14, that's the stuff you remember.

If you can park the "WTF is this?" reaction and just listen to it for the sake of kitsch this really is a lot of fun. I'm not suggesting you play this at a house party unless you want to clear the floor. I actually got more enjoyment out of this than I expected. Which surprised me as after the first song, did I need more of this ... apparently the answer was yes, yes I did and the little Swisher voice concurred and made up a story about the advances in technology that would one day make space-mail a reality. Oh of course there were space twins and Eric Gray.

There's not a lot out there on these guys, and apparently outside of Canada the album was fittingly titled, Disco From Another Galaxy, with a different cover which nicely side stepped anyone thinking this was a prog rock album. If you're curious, and you should be you can stream it. 

Go on, do it..

Better yet, look for the record, it's worth it, and it's on yellow vinyl, which make it's totally more betterer. There's gold in them there grooves, baby!