El Coco

El Coco was a disco vehicle for producers W. Michael Lewis and Laurin Rinder under the business auspices of their RinLew Productions, Inc. The two studio musicians had been involved in the 60's & early 70's hard rock scene but on a tip from Ray Harris of AVI Records, determined that the extended format of disco would be a new lucrative market to enter. They got to work in 1974 and over the next seven years wrote, recorded and produced the music to over 200 television shows, 13 films and 24 albums. Other names they prolifically issued titles under included Saint Tropez, Tuxedo Junction and Le Pamplemousse. They also wrote the theme and soundtracks to the TV series "In Search Of..." and background music for "That's Incredible" & "Those Amazing Animals". In an interview with the website Discopia, Lauren Rinder admits to literally living in the studio for days on end, and "The amount of coke I did to do all this you can’t even imagine. $300 a day. I had to have plastic inserts in my nose so I could do more." Their groundbreaking work is considered seminal for the evolution of electronic rhythm, from the 70's and on. Their distinctive sound was partly a result of their jazz training, which showed up not only in their arrangements and chord progressions, but in the overall musicality and sonic imagination. They created a series of alias projects and dominated the dancefloors as an american answer to the european electronic disco sound of Giorgio Moroder. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.