the obscure song that captured New York disco

(Credits: Far Out / Kan-Du Records)

Tue 28 January 2025 1:00, UK

New York has seen the rise of countless groundbreaking music scenes and subcultures over the years. From the primitive hip-hop MCing of the Bronx to the defiant punk rock of the CBGB club, the city seems to be imbued with artistic inspiration at every turn. Perhaps the most enduring music scene to rise from the East Coast concrete jungle has been disco, the euphoric dance music which rose out of the nightclubs and dance parties of the city’s underground scene and Queer community.

Unlike many other grassroots musical movements, it did not take disco very long to infect and dominate the musical mainstream of America. It might have started out as a rebellious reaction against political and social issues facing marginalised communities across the city, but the infectious beats and innate danceability of the genre made it incredibly marketable, and music industry executives struck very quickly.

All of a sudden, now-iconic names like Nile Rodgers, Chic, and Donna Summer were global superstars, and the Studio 54 nightclub became a Mecca for music fans all over the nation. While the unavoidable commercial success of New York’s disco age was at risk of diluting the key social messages at the heart of the genre, that spirit never truly subsided.

Colossal stars were born from the roots of disco, but the scene always felt at its most innovative and authentic at a grassroots level. As such, some of the most exciting and inventive artists of the disco age existed solely on tiny independent record labels and in obscure live music venues.

Among those long-forgotten record labels was Starbase Sounds. Very little information is known about Starbase, but it appears to have been operating in New York between the years 1978 and 1981. During that time, the label released only a handful of singles, but one of those obscure records, by a little-known New York group called Aura, managed to perfectly capture the spirit and sound of New York disco.

First released in 1978, Aura’s ‘Freex’ did not trouble the mainstream in the same way as other disco releases of the era, but it became an immediate hit in the underground nightclub scene. An ode to freedom and free expression through music, the Ray Cadle-produced song is 12 minutes of raw, unadulterated disco energy, which incorporates elements of funk and soul, the natural predecessors of the disco genre.

Nearly 50 years after its initial release, ‘Freex’ still has the power to command dancefloors and inspire a sense of freedom and euphoria within a room. If you were to boil disco down to its core elements, defying expectations and expressing joy in the face of adversity, then ‘Freex’ is perhaps the song which captures that spirit better than any other.

All that is known about Aura comes from the information provided on the record itself; they were a five-piece group from New York City looking to provide a diverse and danceable soundtrack to the Free Expression Movement (’Freex’ being an abbreviation of that movement). In many ways, though, it is better that Aura remains an enigmatic band. After all, if the musicians are unknown, then the focus is placed entirely on the music itself.

Last year, London-based Vinyl Kitchen Records provided disco fans with the first-ever official reissue of Aura’s ‘Freex’, pressed onto 12” vinyl for the very first time. Not only did this reissue help to keep the previously obscure song relevant in the minds of disco obsessives and vinyl junkies, it also provided an opportunity for modern DJs to spin the 1978 song. After all, disco music is best shared communally through the dance floors and nightclubs of cities all across the world; that is the manifesto set out by New York’s disco age back in the 1970s, and it is certainly the spirit captured by Aura.