Cloud One – Atmosphere Strut

Cloud One’s Atmosphere Strut is a brilliant slice of underground New York disco that feels both loose and futuristic at the same time. Built around Patrick Adams’ instinct for repetition, texture and momentum, it has that hypnotic quality great disco records often have, where very little feels overworked yet everything is exactly where it needs to be. The groove is lean, the arrangement has air around it, and the synthesizer line gives it a strange cosmic shimmer that keeps the track from ever feeling merely functional. It sounds club-made rather than chart-made, which is a big part of its appeal. The Vinyl Factory called it “an underground classic” and praised its “wild synth line” as being well ahead of its time.

What makes Atmosphere Strut endure is that it sits in that sweet spot between rawness and imagination. It is disco, absolutely, but it also points toward later electronic dance music in the way it locks into a groove and trusts texture, pulse and atmosphere to do the emotional work. The Guardian’s profile of Patrick Adams described Cloud One as part of his “underground disco” output and noted the lasting influence these records had on dance music, which makes sense the moment you hear how focused and forward-looking this is. It is not flashy in a mainstream disco way. It is cooler, stranger and more nocturnal than that, and that is exactly why it still feels so fresh.

Reviews

“The inaugural P&P 12” and an underground classic, Cloud One’s ‘Atmosphere Strutt’ was a killer Patrick Adams production straight out of the NYC disco downtown.” – The Vinyl Factory

“Spaced-out disco that survived the cull into obscurity, it stands out for the wild synth line that was way ahead of its time.” – The Vinyl Factory

Genre: Soul & Funk