DJs and clubbers in Beijing are saying goodbye to tech house and hello to disco. Photo: CFP

Does anyone remember the Trammps? Probably not, right? However, you might remember their hit "Disco Inferno," which burned up the American charts during the mid-1970s when disco music's glitter ball was shining at its brightest.

The song is a prime example of what disco's appeal was all about. A steady four-to-the-floor beat with soaring, reverb-laden kitschy vocals: "Burn baby burn, disco inferno / Burn baby burn, burn that mama down." But did the song's success unwittingly contribute to the eventual backlash and unpopularity of disco?

In Beijing at least, the answer is a resounding no. China never experienced the initial wave of disco music from the West, but the emergence of nu-disco - a modern form of dance music influenced by '70s and early-'80s disco, mixed with synthesizer-heavy Eurodisco and Italian disco aesthetics from the mid-'80s - has Beijing clubbers  filling up the hippest clubs in the capital.

With the influx of nu-disco, the previously dominant club music of techno and house beats seems to be experiencing a decline.

"I started to bring nu-disco DJs to Beijing in early 2010," says Max Bureau, 28, originally from Paris, and one of the founders of Beijing clubs White Rabbit (now closed) and Haze. Bureau says that his association with nu-disco in Beijing started with his connections to nu-disco DJs from Belgium. "They [Belgian DJs] saw the decline of techno music from Berlin first, and they wanted more groove-based music," he explains.

Bureau is part of a three-man DJ crew of promoters known as Neon that specialize in bringing Belgian DJs to Beijing with help from the Belgian embassy's cultural center. These DJs, he says, reflect the nu-disco style, which includes everything from '80s new wave to vocal kitsch.

According to Bureau, Haze has definitely seen the impact of the popularity of nu-disco in the West. Proof of this lies in the fact that an increasing number of people are attending weekend nights at Haze.

Beijing DJ Tobias Patrick, 32, from Cologne, Germany, theorizes that the rise of nu-disco and the decline of techno and house could have something to do with the global financial crisis currently crippling western economies.

If hard times fall on any city or place, one of the immediate reactions from the people is the want for more uplifting music. Patrick points to New York City in the '70s as an example. "It was a pretty dark time with the economy and crime. Disco was denying those times. That's how it was born," he says. "Techno is so clean, repetitive and emotionless that the only logical outcome is that people get bored and don't want to listen to it anymore."

Asked what the reasoning behind nu-disco's upsurge in Beijing has to do with the economic crisis, Patrick humorously opines that it's because the capital is usually grey with smog and that people invariably want something "pure and beautiful."

Despite this, it seems that only Western DJs living in Beijing are spinning nu-disco tracks.

"The electronic scene is still very young here," says Bureau. "In cities like Detroit, Bristol, London and Paris, all the kids are beat makers. Here they don't know how to use these machines or have the necessary experience to make beats. But even Western DJs here don't really make their own edits."

Phillip Grefer, a 31-year-old from Germany, and local music scene luminary Helen Feng cofounded Fake Music Media, a company that helps artists get established in Beijing. Grefer is also a DJ and on occasion has taken to spinning nu-disco. "Techno is like rock'n'roll," he says. "It will never die."