Gavin Turek and the nu disco

Straight out of the 1970s, with all the commingled smells of sweat and polyester and a big fat four-on-the-floor beat like God’s metronome, and soaring above it all is a lovely, lithe voice: that’s the Gavin Turek experience. Even though Turek was born a good decade after the last disco ball shined its lights on the masses, the L.A. singer has achieved, more or less, the funky R&B/disco experience that was once dominated by acts such as Donna Summer, Sister Sledge, or Rose Royce. Yeah, that scene became the brunt of many jokes when the whole era breathed its last, which leads to questions, such as, why would anybody want to make that old music new again? Is the revival of genres past the future of music?

The short answer is that Turek, 30, kills it; she’s the fusion of everything that was disco-worthy. Given that original disco was a scene for people in sparkly clothes to come together and find union through dancing, Gavin Turek is more of a bystander sport — she’s booking festivals as well as small-rock-club tours. If you read between the lines, hers was a Hollywood-ish childhood that included a lot of singing and dancing lessons and an agent by the time she was six years old. Later, as an out-of-work actress, she scrambled L.A. and spent a year in India then Africa. Some of the dance moves she learned there are what you see happening during a Turek set.

A couple of years ago, Gavin Turek landed in Spin magazine as one of their “Five Artists to Watch.” By the time she plays San Diego, her newest EP, Good Look for You, will have been released: Prince meets Georgio Moroder, with Michael Jackson and Lauryn Hill along for good measure. It is Studio 54 bliss all over again, for an entire generation who will never know what those times were about or that they ever really happened.

Slares is also on the bill.