kikrokos

Kikrokos was your typical disco studio concoction. Just like the girl group sound of the early 1960's, disco was a producer-driven medium. This allowed a producer to release any number of tracks, using any number of studio musicians and singers under any given name. That was what made disco so successful and also helped kill it.

Producer Michel Elmosnino took members of Kongas and various other singers and musicians, among them a yet to be famous Lene Lovich, into Studio Des Dames in Paris and recorded two tracks in 1978. He was aided by Alain Allet and Pierre Sesti, who also co-wrote the tracks. The album was remixed at Trident Studios in London and rushed released. Polydor pressed promotional 12" singles of a "Spectacular Remix By Jim Burgess" and rushed them into the greedy hands of club D.J.'s. "Jungle D.J." shot up the charts, and unlike many disco releases the album also sold well. The album, "Jungle D.J. & Dirty Kate," had a 15:00 version of the title track, a 7:04 reworking (Medley) of the same and the 9:45 "Life Is A Jungle."

The jungle rhythms, high energy arrangements and lush vocals struck a nerve with dancers around the world. But as with most studio concepts it's life span was only for a single release. The dreadful cartoon-ish cover would never have launched anyone's career, but the music inside was just to good to ignore.

Lena would go on to become a premier artist in her own right the following year with the quirky "Lucky Number" while the musicians would go on to record one more album as the Kongas before disbanding. No one knows what happened to Elmosnino, Sesti and Allet. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.