“Take a chance / Drink into my world of magic / Take a chance and you will see / Come with me / A world of fantasy awaits you .…” So go the lyrics to John Forde’s 1979 psychedelic-disco nonhit “Atlantis.” The song is ostensibly a paean to the wonders of the lost continent, but as the opening number on the Dirty Space Disco compilation, it’s a siren call to sample an alternative-universe’s worth of dance-floor delights.

It should be noted that, despite the inclusion of some recognizable artists such as Sylvester and Odyssey, the Disco of the title is a big-tent term, akin to the cosmic-disco mixes popularized (if that’s the right word) by DJs Daniele Baldelli, Stefano Secchi and others in early-’80s Italy. Assembled by the red-hot Paris DJ/re-edit team Dirty Sound System, Dirty Space Disco follows the Italians’ credo: As long as it’s weird and wonderful, play it. Weird, wonderful and slow—none of the tracks here reach 120 beats per minute, and Tony Esposito’s steel-drum-and-marimba dirge “Processione Sul Mare” clocks in at a glacial 70 bpm. That’s not to say that there’s not plenty of funk on tap here. Sylvester’s “I Need Somebody to Love Tonight” is an ominous slice of late-night sleaze, while Fern Kinney’s “Baby Let Me Kiss You” serves as a bump ’n’ grind sex jam. But nestled against such aural oddities as the Pilooski edit of Clara Mondshine’s krautrocky “Die Drachentrommier” and the new-wave stomp of Yellow Power’s “Hai Samurai,” even those fairly conventional tracks acquire an otherworldly edge.