The Dance’s Groundbreaking Post-Punk Art-Funk Makes US Landfall
Modern Harmonic is proud to give The Dance’s complete catalog a reissue, most of which despite its ‘80s NYC panache and its NME buzz, has never been released in the States. In Lust (1981) and Soul Force (1982), both of which were originally released internationally on Statik Records, finally make landfall domestically. Joining those two coveted post-punk platters is Do Dada, which takes its name from a cult classic track on their Dance For Your Dinner (1980) EP. Do Dada compiles all of their early EPs and joins them with unissued cuts from the bands personal stash.
When The Dance’s four-song, self-produced and distributed Dance for Your Dinner EP first came out in early 1980, Talking Heads’ influential Afro-pop album, Remain in Light, was still nine months from release, as was Blondie’s “Rapture,” and Afrika Bambaataa’s Arthur Baker-produced milestone “Planet Rock” was two years away. In essence, The Dance were not just ahead of their time... they were right on time.
Emerging at the turn of the decade from punk’s three-chord nihilism, whose idea of dancing was to jump up and down or bang heads, The Dance brought a free-wheeling, jagged, dissonant art-funk stomp you couldn’t help but move your body to, ushering the migration from downtown clubs like CBGB and Max’s to the uptown Hurrah, Danceteria and Peppermint Lounge, where DJs now held forth between live sets, with a return to self-invented fashion. The Dance also surfed the emerging post-punk No Wave scene around them, along with the B-52s, DEVO, Bush Tetras, Arto Lindsay’s DNA, ESG, the Lounge Lizards, James Chance, Lydia Lunch, the Slits and PiL. Showing their pedigree, The Dance even covered Stevie Wonder’s pre-Talking Book “Do Yourself A Favor” on their second album, Soul Force. They got the beat alright.
The band, fronted by the then-married team of lead vocalist/lyricist and pumping organist Eugenie Diserio and co-founder/guitarist/writer Steven Alexander, created music and performed live shows that brought sensuality, romance and old-school glam to a dyspeptic world.
--Roy Trakin
Click here to see all of our available LPs & CDs from The Dance!
Includes:
Breakout • In Lust • Survive Another Day • Surrogate For Hate • Personal Grooves • Networking The World • Shine • Relax And Be Romantic • Into The Black