Patrick Cowley and Jorge Socarras Catholic

Words: Thomas Rees
Label: Macro
XLR8R Rating: 9.5/10

A few years ago, some San Francisco DJs and music enthusiasts happened upon a stack of unreleased tape reels featuring collaborations between gay disco icon Patrick Cowley and multi-instrumentalist Jorge Socarras. Shockingly, Catholic was not a Hi-NRG disco album along the lines of Cowley's production for Sylvester, but a multi-genre concept work that hardly contains any typical disco elements. Instead, there's the frenetic post-disco punk of "I Never Want to Fall in Love," the dreamy synth softness of "I Remember," and the almost Television-like weirdo-rock of "Cars Collide." A synth-drenched cover of Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man" finishes the 14-song disc, and the listener is left with a feeling that there is no better song to complete such a lovely, significant time capsule.