Listen: Soca Jams from the Fantastical, Wondrous World of Sentinel Island Disco

The term Soca music is shorthand for “Soul of Calypso,” and one man is responsible for making it a thing. That man, Lord Shorty, exploded out of the Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago in the early 1970s with an infectious, uptempo, oft-bawdy take on calypso. By the mid 1970s, the Lord had absorbed disco, funk, soul and Afrobeat to create a whole new genre. Within a decade, soca had stormed European dance floors.

This musical evolution transpired over centuries, though. In the late 1400s, Trinidad and Tobago was colonized by Spain and, later Britain, with British rule lasting until their independence in 1962. After it became a British commonwealth, many Trinidadians emigrated to Europe, bringing their music and continuing a migration trend from colonial times driven by labor shortages.

Fast-forward 600-plus years and by the 1990s, soca had absorbed electronic dance music, undergirding the buoyant sound with thump-heavy bangers. It also marked the arrival of Machel Mantano, whose 1997 smash “Big Truck” is as frantic as anything coming out of the drum & bass scene at the time.

Move ahead another decade or so and the sound of soca, with its rapid tempos and call-and-response energy, had splintered in ridiculous directions. This 2013 tag-team “Hi-Tech Soca” mix by London producer/DJ Mr. One Hundred (a.k.a. Paul B. Davis) and Minneapolis DJ/producer Bitch Ass Darius is just ridiculous.

In recent years, soca has infiltrated the disco at legendary (totally fictional) hotspot Sentinel Island. Here, the Sentinel Island Disco has created an imaginary soca haven where the history of the music is celebrated, reissued, adapted, remixed, and worshiped. Here’s part of the club’s bio:

Besides being a record label and club night, Sentinel Island Disco is a DJ duo that has its roots in Amsterdam. Moreover, it is a fictional island where the inhabitants seem to have eccentric party rituals. If you want to know what that looks like, you’ll have to dock at Sentinel Island. Someone like Barbara Boeing or San Soda likes to go there too. Think obscure soca, ecstatic (afro) disco and deep percussive grooves from Sentinel’s dark jungles.

Label owners Barney Graman and Coco Vink are responsible for some massive edits.

All of this is to say, run, don’t walk, to grab a copy of Soca Jams, Sentinel Island Disco’s new collection of rarities. The team spent three years, according to release notes, “bringing these lost and obscured recordings back into the limelight, some of which now pressed on vinyl for the very first time. All tracks are carefully remastered and some have been edited or remixed for the modern dancefloor, while staying as close as possible to the original brilliance.” 

Below, one highlight from their 10th anniversary party.

Soca Jams is limited to 500 copies, and they’ll go fast. Here’s the Bandcamp.