France fed records to the disco explosion right from the start. most famously, the tele music players were the chart-topping, multi-million-selling voyage, with the trio of chantereau, dahan and pezin joined by sauveur mallia. phenomenal production and immaculate orchestration made them perfect for the increasingly glamour-obsessed disco scene. but more exciting to collectors are the long-running series of library lps they worked on. 1977’s arpadys has become tele music’s most sought after release, thanks to oft-bootlegged tracks ‘monkey star’, ‘stone roller’ and ‘funky bass’. arpadys put sauveur mallia in the driving seat musically, alongside chantereau, dahan and pezin, with keyboards from georges rodi and jean-pierre sabar. a follow-up, the spatial & co series remained library-only lps, though the tracks did serious business on tv thrillers and space programmes. then in 1979 the same group of musicians, with the exception of mallia, laid down another three albums of storming disco, the disco & co lps, again much sought-after by collectors. amazingly these were dashed off in between sessions for the second voyage album, to satisfy the still-growing demand for library disco.the musicians loved their library work. “although it didn’t use to pay that well, it was a great playground for experimenting,” says pezin, “playing things which we wouldn’t be able to do elsewhere.” tele music supremo roger tokarz gave them almost complete freedom. “he just use to give us a little theme and then we could jam freely for hours on end.” ironically, working with real bands was often more of a chore, as sauveur mallia recalls. “we were considered to be the best session musicians around and when we recorded backing tracks for successful pop acts we could have played the things they wanted with our arms tied behind our back. that’s why recording library music or disco was instantly like a breath of fresh air to us and we were finally able to express ourselves.” tele music founder roger tokarz was the guiding force behind the sessions. “disco was very important at pushing things forward musically,” he argues, “because all of a sudden the musicians, composers and arrangers had a much more important position. they no longer relied on the vocalists; it was all in the arrangements and the progression of the music itself.” tokarz admits that his disco recordings are the most enduring. “today most of our records have a very short lifespan. the ones from our back catalogue which are still very popular are the ones which have that typical ’70s sound.” we tend to agree. working since a few years with telemusic, tubetracks records release these two lp, volume one and two (volume two coming soon) from fully remastered (minimoogli@tubetracks studio) telemusic archives. only available on vinyl and exclusively distribued by topplers. do not miss this rare disco re-issue volume 2 !