Rinder & Lewis - Seven Deadly Sins

2025 first ime ever official vinyl reissue, 140g vinyl. Laurin Rinder & W. Michael Lewis's Seven Deadly Sins is a hugely influenial, synth- powered, atmospheric space-disco masterpiece. It's arguably the best American Disco LP ever made. It's certainly one of the most important albums in the history of dance music. And, like its innovaive producers, it's absolute genius. During the mid to late sevenies the producion team of Laurin Rinder and W. Michael Lewis helped to define the Disco sound that was coming out of Los Angeles with studio projects such as El Coco, Saint Tropez, Le Pamplemousse (with vocals from The Jones Girls), In Search Of Orchestra and many others. Like all of their work, Seven Deadly Sins comprises beauifully arranged and incredibly well produced deep disco that is revered by aficionados. A seven track, largely instrumental concept album covering each of the sins, it was recorded for AVI in 1977. It's a brilliantly conceived, groove-fuelled album that layers moogy keys and druggy synths over club-ready rhythms. The idea that this record is celebraing rather than condemning the sins is said to be another factor that made the record a big one in the underground clubs. Opening sin “Lust” is an intense, swelling, seven minute blockbuster synth journey. An ethereal Los/Garage classic, it's a sprawling, brooding slice of epic dancefloor dynamite that remains a firm favourite of discerning disco heads like Harvey. So ahead of its ime, it sill sounds ridiculously fresh today, drising through a mulitude of melodies over a smooth, lightly percussive mid-tempo beat. A slow-mo sexy killer. Up next, the sprightly-manic “Sloth” is nothing like its itle. A driving, swaggering instrumental incorporaing the same Euro-disco elements as our Das Parisian friends did a few decades on, it's certainly not for the faint-hearted. A clear highlight, the cosmic, throbbing proto-techno of “Glugony” gets things firmly back on track. Pure industrial vibes with dark synth bass punctuated by uplising melodic sequences that brilliantly uilise guitar and horns, is this the sound of Wax! Trax being born? You won't be able to get enough of this. Opening up the B-Side, “Pride” is a breezy slice of classic late sevenies jazz/funk with des Hammond and clavinet grooves and expansive horn secions. It's absolutely fantasic. The wicked lesfield vocal cut “Envy” provides more disco pump with squelchy acid synth flourishes, funky guitar and neck-snapping percussive breaks. The dark proto-techno/house cut “Anger” is a fully on top tour de force of drums. With heavy African percussion throughout and a short Afrobeat secion towards the end, it was sampled by Carl Craig and Laurent Garnier for their Tres Demented project and was also a massive Ron Hardy / Music Box favourite. The album is rounded out by the hard-grooving “Covetousness”, another driving jazz-funk workout par excellence with liberal use of the syndrum. As Laurin Rinder recalled in an interview with Dream Chimney, the duo essenially lived in the studio: “we really had cots, beds and the whole thing, we were just pumpin’ them out. 7 days a week, 3 different projects at the same ime. I played drums on everything but had to play a ligle differently. I had to ask the engineer ‘What’s the name of this group?‘”. Evidently, their prolific output was the result of a crazy cocaine-fuelled producion schedule: “The amount of coke we did, to do all this, you can’t even imagine. $300 a day. I had to have plasic inserts in my nose so I could do more.” Looking at the frankly terrifying cover, you'd have never known! Be With is beyond delighted to present the first ever legit vinyl reissue of Seven Deadly Sins, carefully remastered by Be With's engineer Simon Francisco to ensure it sounds beger than ever. Cicely Balston's expert skills have made sure nothing is lost in the cut whilst the records have been pressed to the highest possible standard at Record Industry in Holland. The unforgegable cover artwork has been reproduced here at Be With - dare you stare back at it for too long?