Some absolutely beautiful records came out of the early days of dance music culture in the late 80s – mid 90s (some call it Rave) and have transcended through the years to still make perfect sense today. An innocence in delivery combined with not stuffing the life out of proceedings created these perfectly frozen in time moments, that many have imitated but rarely bettered over the years. The majority of these great recordings were born out of Belgium, Germany and Italy on hardware set ups with fairly limited computing situations, meaning sequencing on the fly, fiddly synth & sampler work created certain restrictions but also meant the elements you put in had to count! Here’s five still good to go and ONE that went under the knife by us…
Below are some tracks I think embody a certain type of sound, a sound I adore and look for in other records. It’s a sound I can only really describe as sleaze. This sound isn’t celebrating the campness and escapism of Hi NRG or Italo – it sits somewhere else, just down a bit in the cheap seats. It’s a seedy sound of broken hearts, base lines, cheap drum machines… and yes, sex. Desperation and dancing. Below are some classics and a BB EDIT thrown in, for the more adventurous DJ to play out at their local.
Finally a cheeky little cover of Male Stripper by Clinic.
Another free edit HERE and our inspiration behind it! I love Chicago house music, it is and always will be the true essence of what house music really is – naive, camp, raw, often acidic and essentially about a feeling over flashy production techniques. Sadly a lot of house got completely bastardised and polished to death over the years but on a plus point it has kept the originals and the people who carry the torch as relevant as ever. Here are just five from a list of hundreds we love…
In the lead up to the next BB 12″ coming out in July, we are gonna focus on some aspects we love in music. Starting with KEEP DANCIN’ our Chris Issak edit, where his live bass and drums are married in dubbed out bliss…
Also below a selection of some firm favourites from the same haunting and reverbed territory.
After the US paved the way and before Germany and Holland properly took hold, the UK (London in particular) held the crown for well over a decade with some of the best labels and output in electronics by a mile. Nuphonic was one of the most important imprints, with a hefty back cat that we often revisit in DJ sets because it’s so on point with many releases still sounding timeless. Here’s a recap on some favourites…
It put out great records that blurred the boundaries between genres in the best possible way.
Motif – with the kind of dubbed out, loose non-polished house music we lap up.
Pepe Braddock on the remix means only one thing, genre defying quality.
Block 16 again, this time in original form with a weird slice of electro influenced club business.
Xpress II’s Diesel flying solo with a piece of ace hypnotic deepness.
They also birthed the ace spin off label Tirk, which put out gold like this.
Their compilations were among the best around, all killer no filler affairs covering all the areas between house, disco and more and included Andrew Weatherall’s – Nine O’ Clock Drop which featured the above weapon.
The Idjut Boy’s Saturday Nite Live is another stand out Nuphonic compilation. It skirts effortlessly between dub, disco, afro, techno & jazz, reinforcing great djs don’t stand still in their sets.
The label was responsible for two superb Loft compilations, celebrating some of David Mancuso’s selections.
Nuphonic released this great Harvey Remix, way before the world and his wife were claiming to be life long fans.
Do yourself a favour and scoop this – 34 copies at £1.99 is criminal. You can thank us later!
Beatrice Dillon’s ace Curl on Alien Jams sounds like a proper hit record and jam type affair. I just can’t get enough of this one at the minute.
Great when you receive a promo and think fuck that’s different and really good, as was the case when Late Night Call arrived to my inbox.
This whole Proibito release is first class as Mr Naples presents his own take on disco, house and chuggy electronics. At Ease is my fav though, fresh as!
A good friend put me onto this weapon a while ago, the mix of afro vocals, percussion and weird synths has resulted in regular club use every since.
Everyone’s favourite Auntie is certainly having a fine run of form these days. This rework by fellow jock the Revenge is just beaut.
I have loved the Comeme label since the get go. Born from the BumBumBox street parties on the sticky streets of South America, a sweet, sweaty break from the norm. Fun, vivacious and almost a little simplistic in their approach – but in the best possible way. Their releases are truly designed to make you move.
We love Ron Hardy and have done ever since we found out about him in our teens and always will due to the timeless nature of his productions. Everyone bangs on about Larry Levan & Paradise Garage, no doubt those nights were incredible but If we could fire up the time machine for one night only though, The Muzic/Music Box (delete as applicable) circa mid eighties would be the destination. We love the period when the disco era was moving towards the rawer sounds of early house music.
Ron Hardy was great, versatile in the mix, a master of the edit and generally in the blending of disco, house, acid and 80s pop favs, exactly what we’d be after. He would have been 59 this month, if we’ve done our calculations properly, so in respect of the man here are some firm favourites.
Slice and lock baby!
The kind of disco we love, raw and switching around like crazy. This Hardy edit is still good to go.
Robert Owens, Chip E, Larry Heard and Hardy, if you can get more house royalty gold on a disc we’ve yet to hear it.
Raw as you like, real as you like. There is a reason why tracks like this have outlasted the super polished stuff that came after.
Opening sets with this, then smashing the place to pieces with, acid, 909 drums and disco vocals. Come on that’s bound to have been insane and ridiculously fresh at the time. True innovator!
Q – What kind of music are you into? Me – I like Hot Chocolate. Q – What, really?
Yes a lot of their material isn’t great but I’m always drunkenly going on to people about how they have some of the best, cheapest, deepest, weirdest tunes out there. Fact. The production is amazing, his voice is pure sex and the lyrics at times surprising, dark and political. Makes me think what else they have sitting in the vaults that was never released. Some of these records are obvious but it’s worth listening to them in a row to appreciate how good they sound.
Surely one of the finest, long standing imprints that’s come out of Europe is the French power house, Versatile Records. It releases absolute gold and style wise it pretty much touches on everything I love in modern electronics. Here are just a few favourites from their vast back catalogue.
Label owner DJ Gilb’R & DJ Sotofett joined forces on Foliage and show how to make jazz flecked conga house that doesn’t sound shit.
I:Cube is a VR mainstay, this could have so easily been a top five from him alone.
Here he is, getting all hip house on our asses.
This track does very little but at the same time does everything, hypnotic and timeless it’s exactly the kind of thing I look for in a house record and rarely leaves my record bag.
You can’t beat a bit of acid, especially on the Arabic tip.
Joakim is a firm BB favourite, everything he does is gold. He can’t be placed in a nice little genre specific box and we love him for it. A vintage Joakim number here, first heard on an Ivan Smagghe mix many moons ago and still sounding fresh to these ears.
