The result
is Night City Life, a killer collection of 1980s synthesizer songs inspired by
Ilan’s admiration for the glow of London’s late night skyline. Over the course
of 13 essential tunes, Ilan escorts us on a vibrant sprint through rare
Italo-disco, steamy South African synth-boogie, fizzing American freestyle,
oddball Austrian electrofunk and so much more.
There are
naturally a fair few sought-after cuts present, but also a fine selection of
under-appreciated gems that for one reason or other have been all but ignored
since they were released three and a half decades ago. In fact, some selections
are so obscure that barely any information exists about them online.
Check for
example Preludio’s “Mysterious Nights”, an evocative fusion of slow electronic
grooves, dreamy chords and twinkling piano motifs previously buried on a
lesser-known album of unremarkable German synth-pop, or the dollar-bin
brilliance of Fragile’s sweet synth-pop gem “We’ve Got Tonight, Boy”, a cut
that Ilan says is capable of “wrapping itself like tendrils around your soul”.
He’s not wrong.
At the other
end of the scale you’ll find the ultra-rare Italo-disco breeziness of Friend of
Mine’s incredible “Just Your Pride” and Mac & Monica’s soulful 1986 South
African synth-boogie cut “You’re So Good To Me”, copies of which regularly
change hands for hundreds of pounds online. Ilan originally reached out to the
men behind the record last year to tell them how one of their other forgotten
gems had been played on a Boiler Room session; naturally, they were thrilled.
There’s
plenty to admire elsewhere on the compilation, too, from the waves of analogue
synths, bubbly melodies and bobbing beats of the instrumental dub version of
Brian Tatcher’s “Hot Love” – a cold-war era cut inspired by the idea of love
blossoming in the midst of a nuclear meltdown – to the Bobby Orlando-esque
freestyle bustle of Janelle’s “Don’t Be Shy (Dub)” and the sparkling
post-boogie brilliance of Jarmaz’s “Night City Life (Disco Remix)”, a track
Ilan has listened to countless times while admiring the midnight skyline of his
home city.
