After hinting at and finally releasing what is the hottest single this spring, "Get Lucky," the members of Daft Punk aren't about to let the hype end on their upcoming album.

A little over a month ago, videos entitled "Random Access Memories: The Collaborators" started popping up on YouTube. The first featured multi-instrumentalist/producer/songwriter Nile Rodgers. If Rodgers's name doesn't ring a bell, his songs might. This is the man behind Chic's "Le Freak" and David Bowie's "Let's Dance," to name a few. If you haven't watched the series, it's probably one of the smartest promotional tools put out in a long time, because although these videos are interviews with "The Collaborators," they are essentially a series of 10-minute commercials, enticing and exciting you about an album you have yet to hear.

Today, Daft Punk released a video showing what the new abum will look like, along with a teaser of the new track. The video looks like it came out of collaborator Paul Williams's movie Phantom of the Paradise, (a film that the duo have openly revered in interviews), and once again, whets our appetites for a new Daft Punk album.

I remember the first time I saw the Pet Shop Boys. It was after school, and my sister and I were sitting down to watch Video Hits, CBC's suppertime music video program. 

There was something about those opening notes on the synth and the construction of a record so completely digital. It was pop music for ears that wouldn't normally dig a record constituted from keyboards. I was too young to understand the significance of the lyrics, but there was something there. Something that resonated in me.

Almost 30 years later, the Pet Shop Boys are still putting out records and are still master craftsmen in the creation of pop songs. Their latest single, "Axis," sounds like a trip into the land of Moroder, circa "I Feel Love" while still bringing to mind the sounds of Patrick Cowley, a mastermind of Hi-NRG, one of the queerest forms of dance music. 

Meanwhile, the kids from Shit Robot have just put out a new single on DFA Records, featuring Sylvester-esque vocals provided by JENR (also known as Luke Jenner from The Rapture). Vocally, this track is a killer, and musically, the remixes -- especially the Larse Remix -- harken back to the blissful parties of the 1970s. Listen below.

The Atlantic Film Festival announced its lineup on Tuesday, Aug 21, and it contains quite a few queer films this year. I thought I would share some of the films I'd like to catch.

First up is Jobriath AD, a documentary about the fabled gay glam god who was supposed to be the queerer version of Bowie.

And of course, another documentary, this one entitled The Secret Disco Revolution, featuring interviews with Mr Studio 54 and The Gallery himself, Nicky Siano.

The woman behind the moans of "Love To Love You Baby" and the swooping vocals of "I Feel Love" has danced her last dance.

Donna Summer passed away Thursday, reportedly from cancer. She was 63.

Summer with composer Giorgio Moroder

Summer's big breakthrough came in 1975 when "Love To Love You Baby" was released on Casablanca Records. The song became such a dancefloor hit that it was re-released on her album as a 17-minute disco opus, arguably one of the first extended disco edits ever released. Summer continued to work with Moroder, and with the release of "I Feel Love" solidified her reputation as a disco queen.

The sound of her voice on disco dancefloors also helped cement her image as a gay icon. Unfortunately, due to rumours that she had pronounced anti-gay sentiments, she lost her biggest fan base for a while during the '80s. The rumours were later disproven.

For many, Summer will always be the Queen of Disco. Long live the Queen.

This one is for the music fiends.

Disco label Gomma has decided to put out an homage to another disco label, Casablanca Records, with a release entitled "The Casablanca Reworks Project." 

The release includes Canuck electro fiend Peaches singing everything from Michael Sembello's "Maniac" (performed alongside Moulinex) to Donna Summer's "Our Love" with Telonius. But the real pièce de résistance is when Peaches combines her talents with the Phenomenal Handclap Band. Check out the video below.

Twenty years ago today, a young man with a pockmarked face and a self-effacing manner passed away.

Today, that man is name-dropped among music lovers of genres from hip hop to house to disco to new wave to experimental. His name is Arthur Russell.

Russell was a New York fixture, adored and ignored. He worked with everyone from Philip Glass to Larry Levan to Allen Ginsberg. He played the cello, but he also made some of the funkiest and craziest disco records you've ever heard. He is one of the legions of composers and artists who are constantly being rediscovered by crate diggers and music historians and aficionados. There are even documentaries and books devoted to Russell's life. His record "Is It All Over My Face," recorded under the Loose Joints moniker on West End records, is arguably his most famous. To write it out and describe it doesn't pay the record justice. It starts with a simple four-on-the-floor beat, nothing too fast. A jangly guitar comes in, grooving alongside jazzy keys. It's a sustained intro, when all of a sudden, a woman starts to sing. But when you listen to it, your head starts to bop, you get stuck in the groove. It's dirty, it's sexy but it's polished. It's disco for intellectual sex pigs.

Russell was one of those people who was never fully satisfied with his compositions, at least, not until he was able to tweak it in as many ways as he could. He re-recorded many of his compositions, including "All Over My Face," this time with a male vocal. Another of his big hits, "Go Bang" was tweaked and reworked. At first listen, you wouldn't think that dean of disco Nicky Siano had his paws all over this record. It sounds like it should be played at a punk bar made for gay disco queens. But again, it's the idiosyncracies that make it work.

But Russell wasn't just a lover of dance music. He is also known for his cello compositions, such as this one, "Keeping Up," which features Russell himself on vocals. Quiet, earnest and reserved. His work has been cited as an influence for such contemporary composers such as Jens Lekman and The Hidden Cameras' Joel Gibb.

It's hard to decide which Russell I prefer: the soft, sensitive man who played his cello or the gregarious guy who made us all bang. In the end, it doesn't matter. He is no longer with us, so we pay our respects in the best way we can: by listening intently.

 A wake-up call to those of you who wonder what that wonderful music you've been hearing lately is: disco. It never died.

Disco is everywhere you turn these days, from London’s Horse Meat Disco to DJ Harvey’s famed Sarcastic Disco parties. Crate diggers around the world have known the rewards that can be reaped from old disco records as the basis for hundreds of hip-hop, house and electro records. And one of the names you keep hearing, over and over again in the world of disco, is Larry Levan.

Levan was the DJ at the famed Paradise Garage, arguably the most important dance club to ever exist in New York City. Levan was the man behind the wheels of steel; he was the one who broke records, even if he had to force them onto the dancefloor. People lined up around the block, wanting to get in, hoping they might bump into someone who had a membership to this famed club. Watch any serious documentary or read any book about dance music and dance music culture, and Levan will be mentioned.

Disco was created in dark clubs full of sexual abandon. It was very gay, very black and Latino and very in-your-face. ABBA wasn’t disco; Dinosaur L was disco. Rod Stewart may have asked if he was sexy, but Loose Joints asked if it was all over your face. The Garage was a place where people who were considered to be “undesirable” during the Reagan years - due to their sexuality, their race, the socio-economic status, their serostatus – could find a space where they were not only wanted, but praised. There were other clubs, such as Nicky Siano’s The Gallery and David Mancuso’s almost mythological Loft, but the Garage and Levan were downtown, underground and downright sexy. When the “Disco Sucks” sentiment exploded, Levan and his fans simply went underground.

Levan remixed record upon record, visiting everything from singing strings to dubby disco. His playlists went outside the traditional “disco” genre, including everything from Kraftwerk to Marianne Faithful. Levan wasn’t a perfect DJ; he didn’t always mix well, and because of his drug use, he would even occasionally fall onto his turntables. But his sets weren’t about creating the perfect mix or a populist collection of the big hits.They were about communicating with his audience: this is what I am feeling, and this is where I want to take you. It wasn’t about what was right or wrong within a genre; it was about making everything right and tight. To take you on a trip, letting your feet take you to places you’ve never been.