Cristina Monet-Palaci turned her acid wit to tales of faded glamour and toxic affairs - and became a true pop one-offThings Fall Apart singer Cristina reportedly dies from coronavirusFor a brief moment in the early 80s, ZE Records could reasonably call itself the hippest label in the world, but it was deeply peculiar enterprise from the start. The brainchild of Michel Esteban and Michael Zilkha - the Manhattan based, Oxford-educated son of the founder of Mothercare - it bridged New York´s punk and disco scenes.Given how implacably opposed the two genres were (`Death to disco shit, long live rock!` ran an editorial in the first issue of Punk magazine) it should have been a disaster, but ZE somehow made it work. They signed the cream of New York´s supremely challenging post-punk no wave bands - Mars; Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, with their volatile singer Lydia Lunch - alongside disco producer Bob Blank. There was also August Darnell, the musician and producer behind one of disco´s greatest albums, the eponymous debut by Dr Buzzard´s Original Savannah Band, and Machine´s extraordinary single There But for the Grace of God Go I, a rare example of disco in explicit protest-song mode. Zilkha encouraged no wave band the Contortions to record a disco album, Off-White, and attracted artists who thought along similar lines to him and Esteban: the Waitresses, Don and David Was, Lizzy Mercier Descloux. Continue reading...
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