Outline

In the first half of 1979, disco was peaking so pervasively that even major labels realized they could profit by targeting dancers who wouldn't dare get down to their grandmother's boogie. Connoisseur disco had existed for years, but Gino Soccio's Outline — the first release by Warner Bros.' RFC Records, a label staffed by respected disco promotions guru Ray Caviano and esteemed Record World disco columnist Vince Aletti — was advertised as such. Even the unabashedly arty cover to this Canadian multi-instrumentalist's debut announced that this was serious stuff.

Soccio applied Chic's leanness to Eurodisco's orchestrations. The opening track and biggest hit "Dancer" foregrounds a monumental bottom that repeats and repeats as other trance-inducing instruments join in to echo and elaborate until a fluttery bridge provides sweet temporary relief. Then the bass returns, even nastier and more nagging than before. "Try to take it higher," sing the girlie girls in a psychedelic haze before some of the most reverb-laden handclaps ever recorded slap us out of our reverie.

Like so many disco albums circa 1979, Outline is only five cuts long, and one, "So Lonely," is more interlude than song. But all are complementary parts of a well-balanced, fastidiously engineered whole… read more »