Remastered and reissued by Chicago’s Numero Group, Rupa’s 1982 Balearic odyssey revels in esoteric disco breaks, cosmic synths and Indian prog-funk grooves

Basement bin compilations that place the word “disco” before literally any other genre for maximum and mistaken appeal. Discovered later by crate diggers and excavated for breaks. Paul’s Boutique magic (sometimes) in effect. Rupa’s Disco Jazz LP is a 1982 curio worth fully releasing back into the world. It wouldn’t be out of place on Finders Keepers and indeed it is right at home on the joyously eclectic Chicago label Numero Group. With a genre-busting attitude – and an album running thirty-seven minutes across only four tracks – Rupa Biswas cannot be accused of being pedestrian or playing by the rules.

“Moja Bhari Moja” kicks in like Blondie’s “Rapture” taken to the outer edges of disco as a global phenomenon. Local flavour deepens its universality rather than having an isolating effect. Sun-kissed sarod licks spiral up into a dream-cloud sky. Rupa beckons the gods, drawing them down to earth as momentary apparitions. And so the groove continues – bubbling underneath a percussive lake for a spell – flying along and over the endless night. Clocking in at over the eight minute mark, “Moja Bhari Moja” offers up an ever-shifting palette of cosmic synth vibes set against extended funk jams. During its most esoteric moments the track rubs up against Jean-Claude Vannier’s L’enfant Assassin Des Mouches. I imagine David Holmes dropping it in a set around 1998.

The 1970s TV theme stomp of “East West Shuffle” bursts out the box suggesting a sitcom about highly strung corporate flight attendants reimagined as Reggie Perrins in the skies. A drum roll signals a channel-switch and another show materialises where Sun Ra stars in a mind expanding remake of Magnum PI. To be programmed on a mixtape between Belbury Poly’s “The Elsewhere Shuffle” and one of the more jaunty Beastie Boys instrumentals. “Aaj Shanibar” picks up the long journey again with a pure Balearic bliss-out that is poised from moment to moment, its guitar way more prog than jazz. Shimmering production combines with Rupa’s invitation into the inner sanctum, which is a blistering Space Age module. It’s stuffed full of breaks to be plundered; a hip-hop sample suite for the taking.

A secular chant alone in the desert signals the beginning of the end on “Ayee Marshume Be-Reham Duniya”. The funk throbs through heatwaves, breathing in visions. Mock-ominous synthesiser washes meanwhile hint at the fantastical. Frothy 1970s world cinema is thus melded with the ultra-pulpy, the deliciously camp (think Richard Fleischer’s Conan the Destroyer). Funked Fantasy indeed. There’s a carnival going off in there too – although it is unclear what is being celebrated except the heat of the now stretched out over eons and internalised as half-remembered primal dreams. At fifteen minutes long and with a kitchen sink approach, the track is nothing if not indulgent, yet that’s what gives it its energetic appeal. Rupa is an outer reaches disco cosmonaut, navigating us through a lurid landscape more prog cover art than tasteful realism. Disco Jazz is her medium and her massage.

numerogroup.com/rupa

Stewart Gardiner
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