It is perfectly appropriate that the debut album from the New York-based producer and DJ Andy Butler, a rather magnificent faux-disco confection, should be loosely inspired by classical mythology.

No city so obviously creates legends about its nightlife, from the 1970s high life of Studio 54 to more recent hipster parties in Williamsburg. In a town where a handful of people dancing in a bar can count as a code violation and a closedown, partying can become heroic in the retelling. So even Butler's pseudonym, inspired by the hero's weakness for men, becomes a giveaway.

Hercules and Love Affair is a flighty, hedonistic proposition. A series of guest vocalists leave their mark, most notably Antony Hegarty. At his most defiantly histrionic on the opening Time Will, his voice rather dominates a backing track gleefully borrowed from Frankie Knuckles's classic Your Love. The relentlessly danceable single Blind, apparently four years from inception to completion, could hardly be improved upon. The suitably uplifting Raise Me Up isn't far behind, with Hegarty's inimitably sad tones incongruousy juxtaposed with a gleeful arrangement, while Easy is a gloomy affair.

More joyful are the delightfully lush, off kilter disco flashbacks such as Hercules Theme and the jazz-inflected This is My Love, sung by Butler himself. Elsewhere, dizzily ecstatic house tunes such as the terrific You Belong will surely induce an instant MDMA flashback in listeners of a certain generation.

This nostalgic melancholy is not accidental. At times, these tunes sound uncannily like the proto-garage and house played by Larry Levan to a crowd unaware that they were hearing the sound of a future that many would not live to see. Butler effectively pays tribute to a lost generation.

This superbly measured and evocative tribute to the legendary pre-Aids glory days of New York's gay clubbing scene may not count as the most gallant of labours - but it is a terrific record.

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