There is a reason why disco will never die. At its best, it’s a music of strength, community and happiness. Initially embraced and developed by American blacks, gays and Latinos, disco has fallen in and out of fashion over the past four decades, but has remained a constant on dancefloors.

Disco is currently experiencing a love-in of mass proportions. Over the last few years, many dance-music pundits have predicted the imminent re-emergence of disco as a dominant force — what with a groundswell of disco re-edits, loads of Italo-disco releases and the indie disco charge led by DFA Records — and in 2008, their predictions undeniably came true.

In a year where disco and its direct descendants ruled, I featured a number of key international players — including Andy Butler of Hercules and Love Affair, Pat Mahoney of LCD Soundsystem and British indie-dance don Erol Alkan — in this column. During our conversations, all of them spoke excitedly of a South London Sunday-night party dubbed Horse Meat Disco.

“Horse Meat Disco is a gay party that’s quite mixed in every way,” says Severino, an Italian who’s been living in London for the past 11 years and who is one of Horse Meat Disco’s four resident DJs. “We always want to be different than the usual gay, shirts-off parties. When I talk to other DJs, both gay and straight, I realize that it’s definitely a magical place.”

I speak from much experience when I say that it’s no small feat to create a party where homos and heteros — bears, dykes, drag queens, club kids and hipsters alike — regularly come together. It was that vision, and their love of disco in its myriad forms, that led promoters/DJs James Hillard and Jim Stanton to launch Horse Meat Disco in 2003.

“James had this idea five years ago,” explains Severino. “Everybody was playing electroclash here in England and nobody really was playing disco, but there were lots of people in their thirties and forties who wouldn’t go out because they didn’t like the music. It was a good idea to start a disco night inspired by clubs like The Paradise Garage and The Loft.”

In a nod to the once-popular gay bar tradition of Sunday tea dances, Horse Meat Disco starts early in the evening, has food and features a great deal of classic ’70s disco alongside contemporary disco-inspired productions. Guest DJs have ranged from international new disco stars like Prins Thomas, Andy Butler and Todd Terje to house DJs including Derrick Carter as well as London-based gay DJs who packed the bars in the ’80s, but hadn’t played since.

The foursome behind Horse Meat Disco consciously highlight queer club history. In 2007, for example, they co-hosted the first expressly gay tent in the famed Glastonbury Festival’s history, throwing a two-night party dubbed NYC Downlow.

“We recreated a proper 1978 gay disco club in downtown New York,” says Severino. “There was a street scene, a little entrance, it was pitch black inside, full of trannies and drag queens and leather men and pulsing disco. It was amazing and became so popular with people both gay and straight.”

So popular that the guys were asked to bring the party to the Lovebox Festival later that year, were invited back to both festivals this year, and will be recreating a 1988 gay-club experience for the fests in 2009.

Five years in, Horse Meat Disco seems loved by all. The crew now host a weekly show on Ministry of Sound Radio and will be launching a residency at London superclub Fabric come February. These are all solid signs of people coming together through a love of disco, with much to learn from the past.

“When I moved to London, there was already a new disco movement happening with all of these producers — especially straight guys like Faze Action, Idjut Boys and DJ Harvey — who’d been totally inspired by The Paradise Garage,” recalls Severino. “They were making lots of re-edits and new music all inspired by disco, but at the time, they and the key labels like Nuphonic didn’t break through in a big way, partly because everyone was so separate.

“If they had reached out more and the gays had gone to their parties maybe they would have been more successful. Instead, the movement went down. With Horse Meat Disco, we did it the other way around; we started it as a gay thing and then involved straight people as well.”