Various

A labour of love from Soundway records compiling funky hits from Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and more

Compiled by DJ and Soundway Records manager Alice Whittington, aka Norsicaa, Ayo Ke Disco is a snapshot of disco, funk and soul-inflected pop from the clubs of Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong and the Philippines in the 1970s and 80s. The ten tracks hand-selected by Norsicaa draw on her Malaysian heritage and advocacy for music from this underreported time and place, when traditional music-making met Western styles and electronic instrumentation.

Ayo Ke Disco is the latest in a long series of compilations from London-based label Soundway, presenting a more international alternative to white and Western-centric narratives of pop and rock history. It follows Soundway compilations of earlier musical waves in Southeast Asia – including mid-century Indonesian music and Thai funk and jazz – but other notable successors are Light in the Attic’s Japanese City Pop compilations. Although sourced from different countries, both compilations reflect the optimism of youth culture at the time, originating from increasingly cross-cultural and international scenes, recent economic prosperity and – in Ayo Ke Disco’s case – the recently-won independence of many countries in the region.