Kebekelektrik

Websites:  No
Origin: Montréal, Québec, 🇨🇦
Biography:

Soccio got his start in disco when Montreal producer Pat Deserio called him in 1975 and asked if he would play keyboards and help compose for the Kebekelektrik album. Prior to this, Soccio was working as a local session musician.

Deserio asked Soccio to make a disco version of Ravel's "Bolero," which he wanted to release with filler tracks under the fictitious act name Kebekelektrik, a Kraftwerk-influenced misspelling of "Quebec Electric." In reality, Soccio played every note. "It was very labor-intensive," Soccio later said, "but at the same time, I had free rein of the entire studio, which had never happened [before]. It was a really great learning experience. I had never done disco. As you're going along doing it, you fall right in love with it." The Kebekelektrik sessions produced B-side "War Dance," described by Wax Poetics' Jered Stuffco as "an orgy of analog squirts and electronic flourishes that Soccio wrote and recorded on the spot, warts and all."

The four-song LP Kebekelektrik was remixed by Tom Moulton and released in the U.S. on Salsoul in 1978.

The Kebekelektrik album helped to launch Soccio's career, as his composition "War Dance" became a hit on U.S. dance floors, a song Soccio himself had deemed "filler". In Canada, the Kebekelektrik song "Magic Fly" reached number 69 on the pop charts, October 8, 1977.