Patrick Cowley, “Lumberjacks in Heat” (Dark Entries)
Dark Entries continues to dig into the treasure trove of the late disco producer and porn-film-soundtrack composer Patrick Cowley‘s tumescent back catalog with Mechanical Fantasy Box, a new collection of 13 unreleased songs recorded between 1973 and 1980. It’s released on October 19 in conjunction with Cowley’s homoerotic journal of the same title. Most of the tracks here predate Cowley‘s more accessible, Hi-NRG work with disco diva Sylvester, for whom he produced the hits “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” and “Do You Wanna Funk?”
Thanks to Dark Entries’ stalwart efforts, Cowley—who died in 1982 from AIDS at age 32—is gaining more recognition as one of the pioneers of electronic dance music; perhaps you can call him the gay American Giorgio Moroder. One might assume that the gay-porn-flick scores Cowley cut would be production-line hackwork, functional backdrops for fucking, sucking, and fisting. But he imbued his XXX assignments with way-above-the-call-of-duty artistry. Check out the recent reissues of School Daze, Muscle Up, and Afternooners for extensive proof. They’re full of bold explorations of funk, proto-disco, and ambient—and not a dud track in the bunch.
“Lumberjacks in Heat” should make even the straightest heterosexuals hot and bothered. It’s an 11-minute, 26-second blow-out of florid space-synth tapestries and unstoppable rolling rhythms. Think Keith Emerson circa ELP, Tomita, and Synergy in a group grope with an armada of analog synths and a drummer fueled by poppers. Talk about a stamina test… Seminal stuff.
Proceeds from Mechanical Fantasy Box will go to the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.
