Horse Meat Disco

horse meat disco is four djs and a sunday night. luke howard, severino panzetta, james hillard and jim stanton started the party on new year's day 2004 at the eagle in vauxhall, south london, and it still runs there every sunday. it was built as a queer party, a room where the record came first and everybody was welcome, and that has been the point of it ever since. their own line on how the night works is worth keeping: you put music at the top and getting high or jiggy follows, not the other way round.

In 15 odd years of doing this now there has never been an argument. We're all pretty easy going.

james hillard to glitterbox, 1 october 2020

the records grew out of the party rather than the other way round. strut released the first Horse Meat Disco compilation on 1 january 2009, a set of silky anthems and sleaze classics pulled from what the four of them were actually playing, and the series ran to a fourth volume on 1 january 2014. they held a weekly sunday show on rinse fm and played radio 1's essential mix on 23 december 2017. in 2009 they built glastonbury's first dedicated LGBTQ+ space, and they have carried the sunday format out to residencies in berlin and new york.

the album is Love And Dancing, out on glitterbox recordings on 2 october 2020. fourteen tracks, seven years of work, all original writing with no covers and no samples, made alongside luke solomon and keyboard player darren morris. kathy sledge of sister sledge sings on two of them, amy douglas on three, and n'dea davenport takes Fight For Love. it is the record that moved them from selectors to a group that writes disco.

the remix work has kept coming. Disco & Boogie From Brazil Vol.1, a thirteen track compilation they assembled for mr bongo with rio record collector tee cardaci, arrived on 21 march 2025. their rework of nile rodgers and duran duran's Free to Love came out on tape modern on 22 may 2026, the lykke li remix Lucky Again followed on 10 july 2026, and their take on jessie ware's Sauna landed on EMI on 17 july 2026.

two uk dates are confirmed for 2026. on 29 august they play support to fatboy slim at colchester castle in colchester, on a bill that also carries Eats Everything, erol alkan and sarah story. on 26 september they are on the lineup for homobloc at depot mayfield in manchester, homoelectric's queer block party festival, alongside kim petras, honey dijon and derrick carter.