Casablanca is, hands down, one of the most important labels in disco. Led by Neil Bogart in the 1970s, they signed Donna Summer, Stephanie Mills, Parliament with George Clinton and are pretty much responsible for the reason why we consider the 70s to be an era of excess. Today, the Munich-based Gomma Records—a label that was part of the original production for the burn Studios’ Electronic Pioneers 2012 project—has reworked four time-honoured tracks from the Casablanca catalogue. We met with Harold Faltermeyer, original Casablanca collaborator and Gomma founder Jonas Imbery, aka. Telonius, to talk about their new project and how they plan on transforming Peaches into a new queen of disco.

VICE:What was it about Casablanca that made it take off?
Harold Faltermeyer:It was a new sound that created a totally new era of electronic, precise music.

How did you recreate the Casablanca back catalogue?
Jonas Imbery: We chose four tracks together with Harold and Peaches, that were reworked by Moullinex, Munk, The Phenomenal Handclap Band and Telonius, with Peaches singing on all four tracks. Harold recorded some analogue keyboards in his studio in Munich and we recorded the vocals in Berlin.

You were working at Casablanca back in the days. How did you rework the tracks from back then?
Harold:From what I know, how we did it in the old days. I was listening to the new stuff and then added some, which turned out to be a profitable for the new tracks. The whole project is a great idea. So many great songs.

What songs are we talking about?
Jonas:The really famous artists on Casablanca were Donna Summer, Gorgio Moroder, Parliament, Kiss or Cameo. Then they also released movie soundtracks like Flashdance or Battlestar Galactica. What we were trying to do, was to create a balance between really well known songs like “Maniac” from the Flashdance soundtrack and hidden gems like “You Can’t Run from my Love” by Stephanie Mills.

How was it to work with those iconic songs?
Jonas:We always try to do the unexpected, so that was the challenge with this production, because it can be a bit dangerous to rework well known songs or chart hits.

And then you even feature Peaches. How did that come about?                             
Jonas:Everybody expects you to choose an existing disco queen when you rework those hits, but we like to be a bit unexpected and bring in some edge. There is nobody quite like Peaches, with her really iconic image.

Gomma is based in Munich, but the city has been pretty important for Casablanca as well, right?
Jonas:Giorgio Moroder worked and lived in Munich and he actually discovered Donna Summers there. She was singing in a musical, he saw her and thought, “Yes, that‘s the girl!”

Donna Summers must be the biggest voice in disco.
Harold: She was larger than life, she did everything. And let‘s face it, she is a great singer. The first song I wrote was Hot Stuff, which turned out to become her biggest hit.

What do you think about Gomma and their approach to music?
Harold:The idea of just being authentic and being original is a concept that has the right direction and you can only wish them lots of success with that.

From February 13th until March 5th, the Casablanca classic “Walk the Night” is available for further remixing via burn Studios. Click here for details.