The Dance Music Nobody Talks About S & D

S: Congress - "40 Miles", italo-piano house belter which had the misfortune to come out just when everyone was getting into breakbeat hardcore. A minor hit, so it's forgotten about as pop but far too successful to be an underground classic. But classic it is, in a rather eager-to-please way.

i am just waiting for Ned to show up. Surely, if he reviewed the AoL disc on AMG, he must have other ideas?

Movin'On by 400 Blows

at a stretch they could figure in this 80's avant funk thing going on.

It was a good era for italo-house, though I'm far from an expert in that either. Black Box on the popular side, of course, but also Starlight's "Numero Uno" comes to mind right away, plus (I think this is all Italo...) the 49ers and Gino Latino...shit, can't recall much else.

For a great obscurity, too (at least in North America), check Eighth Wonder's excellent "J'ai Pas Peur," a French cover of the Pet Shop Boys "I'm Not Scared" sung by Patsy Kensit.

I have only heard "Plage de St. Tropez" but I love it. It's like instant children's dance music. Just add jet trash.

I always feel lost on these dance threads but maybe I can ask here . . . who does the definitive version of "THESE! sounds fall into my mi-yi-yi-ind . . ."? I think mine is Buckethead(?) from a "House of Handbag" mix.

some more "forgotten" (?) older dance tunes:
Latour "People Are Still Having Sex"
Bingoboys "How To Dance"
The Adventures Of Stevie V "Dirty Cash"
RFTR "Extrasyn"
JX "You Belong To Me"
Lick "Got To Move Your Body"
Reel 2 Real "I Like To Move It"
Cappella "U Got 2 Know"
Hi Tek 3 "Spin That Wheel"
Plaza "Yo Yo" (was this ever a hit outside of Belgium?)
Hithouse "Move Your Feet To The Rhythm Of The Beat"
Tony Scott "The Chief"
The New Confetti's "The Sound Of C"
Beatmasters "Hey DJ (I Can't Dance To The Music You're Playing"
Twenty 4 Seven "Can't Help Myself"
2 In A Room "Wiggle It"

Siegbran's list reads partially like Dan's ultimate Mix in Heaven.

Andy Weatherall is now a well-respected compiler of classic comps like 9 O Clock Drop and Hypercity, but back in 1989 he put his name to a very dodgy but very enjoyable collection of Italo-House called something like Italia! Ph34r the piano overloads.

(It was a very innocent era for dance music when to be identified as 'dance-influenced' all you needed was a house piano breakdown.)

Apollo 440 (Mode-esque synth pop, dodgy Blue Oyster Cult covers, the trancified 'Liquid Cool', glitzy-disco tributes to Gene Krupa, the brilliant Van Halen sampling 'Aint Talkin Bout Dub' then finally abysmal dub/rock/bigbeat bilge and remixes of bloody James' bloody 'Sit Down' - thats the last i heard of them)

Bizarre Inc. - wavy ravers with a triumverate of classic tracks (Such A Feeling, Playing With Knives, Raise Me) - then they went all poppy with I'm Gonna Get Ya, Took My Love, Keep The Music Strong, Surprise - all not too bad in fact. i think one of them went on to make big beat tracks as Sir Drew too...

Psychotropic - one big tune in the shape of 'Hypnosis' - very Balearic '91 vibe, would probably sound a lot better sped up to hard house speed admittedly.

Rollo - with Sister Bliss, these two were titans of mid 90s euphoric dance, rooted in hard house and esp. huge with the gay Trade crowd. anthems like 'Love here I Come', 'Get Off Your High Horse' and 'Let This Be A Prayer' outshine both the likes of Sash! and the likes of Junior Vasquez for the ultra-camp almost evangelical dancefloor rush.

Wamdue Project - aka the elusive Chris Brann - 'King Of My Castle' got remixed into its chart smash incarnation but before that it was a dreamy Balearic house classic of sorts...Roy Malone mix of 'You're The Reason' is also kinda nice.

Triple X 'Feel The Same' - classy filter disco with a heavy pop flavour. Italian i presume? have not heard anything else by them alas...

SEARCH the following for house piano action:

Slo-Moshun 'Bells Of NY'
Chubby Chunks 'Testament vol. 1'
FPI Project 'Back To My Roots'
K-Klass 'Rhythm Is A Mystery'
Cool 2 'Kinda Groovy' (and if you find this LET ME KNOW!)
N-Joi 'Anthem'
Jimi Polo 'Better Days' (the track that Congress samples)
Shades Of Rhythm 'Sweet Sensation'
Starlight 'Numero Uno'

they got away with it in 1990 but there's no way the knob-twiddlers couldve kept up that kinda of thing throughout the decade - my 'Spiritually Ibiza' compilation from '95 has Grid style tracks (Mental generation's 'Cafe Del Mar', Audio Deluxe's '60 Seconds' and 'real Life' which sampled Bo Rap long before Raven Maize did) but its really just 'hippy shit' right? if still popular today, it wouldve got even more derision than the likes of Royksopp get on this board now.

William Orbit and his Strange Cargo excepted perhaps

psychotropic - hypnosis had an sl2 rmx stevem which is a stone cold hardcore classic

ok i heard a cheesy trance-pop track the other day played by Chris Moyles and he said 'that's new from Slipmatt' - what a gwan?

i was just thinking about DJ Seduction yesterday - i NEED to hear 'Come On' again - i think this got in the Top 40, as did 'Hardcore Heaven' but they do both fall into the hardcore/rave sound that its credible and popular to romanticise currently

i want to know what people think about Apollo 440 stuff still...'Lolita' was their first thing and apparently made an impression on the rave/techno circuit at the time - heard it gareth?

and indeed what about The Grid? seems like they went away for years then 'Swamp Thing' was a massive hit all over Europe and you had 'Rollercoaster' too. now Dave Ball is back in Soft Cell, what about Richard Norris?

(Jess yr first reply was godlike btw, AoL fans are even harder-core than The Gathering for realz)

Highlights being:

We Don't Exist - The Acid Boyz
I'll House You - The Jungle Brothers
It Takes Two - Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock
Gittin' Funky - Kid n' Play
Stomp - Master Plan

I really hoped Missy Elliot's fantastic "4 My People" would kick start a HipHouse revival... but sadly no.

"Hot in Herrre" by Nelly is kinda Housey, no?

Yes, Italian...

have not heard anything else by them alas...

AFAIK there are no other Triple X originals, but they recently did a great remix of Mundian Te Bach Ke on the Italian 12" release. And their remix of ATC My Heart Beats Like A Drum is amazing in how it transforms the cheesiest of europop into a huge filterfest. And decent remixes of Love Connection The Bomb and Alive Alive.

You'll have to pitch it up considerably to make it work in a house set though, it's way too slow.

Richard Norris

...is now Electroclash as The Droydz.

Mercifully.

Touch & Go is remembered in the UK thanks to it being the theme song to the show 'As If'

Red 5, Dario G, Captain Hollywood ARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!

Siegbran do you remember Culture Beat's 'Adalante' - thats one i'd like to hear again

now what about U96?

Wasn't that an album track? Can't remember it as a single...

U96

"Das Boot" and "Club Bizarre" were close to classic, but the rest is terrible. "Love Religion", "I Wanna Be A Kennedy", "Love Sees No Colour", and his production work for Rollergirl...what the hell was he thinking?

And another list:

Wisdome "Off The Wall"
Plaything "Into Space"
MC Sar & The Real McCoy "It's On You"
King Bee "Back By Dope Demand"
Mr Lee "Pump That Body"
2 In A Room "Wiggle It" (actually it might be better off forgotten - the 2002 Aquagen remix was abysmal)
Mister Mixi & Skinny Scotty "I Can Handle It"
Egma "Let The Bass Kick"
Fire On High "Float In A Dream Of XTC"
Nomad "Devotion"
Sonic Surfers "Beat Of Zen"
The Farm "All Together Now"
Lonnie Gordon "Gonna Catch You"
Secchi "I Say Yeah"
2 Hyped Brothers & A Dog "Doo Doo Brown" (this is just bizarre...)

Marusha's 'Deep' and Westbam's 'Celebration generation' are classic, of course you've got the earlier Westbam tracks 'Alarm Clock' and 'The roof Is On Fire' too, but he did some terrible stuff too lets face it

Technohead 'I Wanna Be A Hippy' - still love it, and the GTO stuff is great too.

Nomad "Devotion"

stone. cold. classic. i got listening to this track again late last year and it just sounds better with age, Mikey Freedom's rap has some ironic appeal i guess ("Like Hawk The Slayer I cam and quartered, Maggie came but now she's slaughtered!").

OK, but the Technohead tune is a bona fide classic (everybody seems to remember and love it at least), and all the Go Bang! stuff (D-Shake, Turntable Hype, Fierce Ruling Diva, GTO, Quazar, House Of Venus) is pretty canonical, no?

MTVE was the greatest, it's a crying shame it's all been localized now. You got all the German tunes (all the Detroit-Berlin-axis stuff, Fehlmann & Väth, and later all the Mayday rave/techno) as well as the music that was popular in the UK (808 State, The Orb, Orbital, LFO), with Italian, Spanish and French chart hits thrown in as well - all the tunes you never heard on the radio. The first real manifestation of that grand vision of a future unified Europe for me...history quickly crushed that dream.

(the deep heat comps were great for this stuff)

I Wanna Give You Devotion!

That song rules!

despite all this, MTV Europe was instrumentally useful for exposing dance music throughout Europe with the Partyzone, MTV Dance and so on. which just leaves the question, are Scooter better now than they were 8/9 years ago or not?

are Scooter better now than they were 8/9 years ago or not?

The great thing about Scooter is that they're exactly the same as 9 years ago. I still remember a 1993 review of the first single Hyper Hyper which went along the lines of "it's absolutely pants. One of those novelty acts we can be sure of that nobody will ever hear of again".

Incidentally, I saw the video for the new Scooter single Weekend a few days ago and it's beyond bizarre. A troupe of Buddhist monk slaves and bare breasted girls, discomforting "faces under skin" CGI FX, all in a fetishist Roman setting. And of course another classic line for HP Baxter: "We Are Not The Monkees! But We've Got The Key!"...

what was the first video you ever saw on MTVE? mine was actually u96's 'Das Boot' or maybe Adamski ft Nina Hagen's 'Get Your Body' - this was when on holiday in Mallorca in '92. we finally got satellite tv in '93 and i think the first vid i saw then was CultureBeat's 'Mr Vain' or Sven Vath's 'La Esperanza' - as you can see MTVE's influence on me is so huge that remembering shit like that comes very easy.

this is an amazingly prophetic post

Also: Billie Ray Martin to thread...

Oceanic - Insanity
The Bassheads - Back To The Old School
Culture Beat - Anything
CeCe Peniston - Finally
Utah Saints - Something Good
Sub Sub feat. Melanie Williams - Ain't No Love (Ain't No Use)*
Robin S - Show Me Love

*still my favourite Doves song

Farley and Heller - "Ultraflava"
Todd Terry - "Keep on jumpin"
Underground Sound of Lisbon
Junior Vasquez
DJ Pierre - "Muzik sets you free"

and on a different tip:

Ultra-sonic - "Annihilating rhythm"
DJ Technotrance - "YRS Stomp"
Neuro-Tek - "Cocaine"
Chill FM - "Strobelight"

and 'Ultraflava' - liked that one a lot

i've been thinking about loads of mid 90s happy handbag anthems again...

Nush 'U Girls'
Nu-Birth 'Anytime'
2 Men Will Move You 'The Goodbye Thing'
Nightcrawlers 'Push The Feelin' On' (but everyone remembers this)
Jinny 'Keep Warm'
The Swimmer 'Let It Come'
DSK 'What Would We Do' (they play it on 24HPP in the first Hacienda club scene)
E-Motion 'Naughty North, Sexy South'
Kadoc 'Night Train'
Klubbheads 'Klubbhopping'
DJ Supreme 'Wildstyle'
Technocat ft Tom Wilson 'Technocat'

and more Westbam ('Alarm Clock', 'The Roof Is On Fire', 'Celebration Generation')

and Marusha ('Deep' and 'Unique' her best tunes i think, everything else probably TOO cheesy)

Also: Livin Joy - "Dreamer"

this thread reminds me... can anyone remember the producer of a track from the early 90s called "take it"? It consists of a sample of those words being sung plus a little sax loop. I heard it on bassquake (RIP) a few years ago... thnks!

Zoe - Sunshine On A Rainy Day
Rozalla - Everybody's Free (To Feel Good)
Crystal Waters - Gypsy Woman
Alison Limerick - Where Love Lives
Karen Ramirez - Looking For Love

I picked up a 50 track megamix CD from 1991 used for next to nothing. Lots of forgotten gems:

Dr. Baker - Kaos
Petra & Co - Just Let Go
Space Trax - Atomic Playboy
The Mixmasters - In The Mix
Fire On High - Float In A Dream Of Ex-TC
Westbam - Hold Me Back
How II House - It's Time To Feel The Rhythm
B-Sides - The Tape
B-Sides - Moral Soundabuse
Lewis Lovebump - Mallorca
Digital Boys - Kokko
The Break Boys - My House Is Your House (And Your House Is Mine)
A Homeboy A Hippy & A Funky Dredd - Total Confusion
DJ Dick - Weekend
T99 - Anastasia
Dirty Mind - The Killer

And some more oldies:
Kellee - My Love ("...is the only key that can set you free")
RMB - Spring
RFTR - Extrasyn
D-Mob - Put Your Hands Together

Technocat ft Tom Wilson 'Technocat'

Recently reissued with new mixes!

Scotland is grate.

i always thought this song would be perfect if covered by dag nasty (in their best period)... could work so well as a skaty hardcore tune...

Deep Zone - It's Gonna Be Allright
Kadoc - The Nighttrain
The Original - I Love You Baby
OT Quartet - Hold That Sucker Down
Gala - Freed From Desire
Novy vs Eniac - Superstar
The Course - Ready Of Not
Red 5 - I Love You...Stop
Kellee - My Love
Jean & Peran - I Give My Life

Culture Beat - "Mr. Vain" & "Got to Get It"
Cosmic Baby - "Loops of Infinity" (not the album version, though)
Westbam - "Wizards of Sonic"
??? - "Don't Want No Short Dick Men"
??? - "Poing"
RMB - "Redemption", "Universe of Love", "Spring" etc.
Robert Miles - "Children"
Microglobe - "All Our Colors"
Jens - "Loops & Tings"
Robotnico II - "Backtired" (not the vocal version, though)
Raver's Nature - all their singles, basically (except "Fire")
Hardsequencer - "Plastic Fantastic", "Dancing Nations" & "Broadcast"
Tony di Bart - "The Real Thing"
D:Ream - "Things Can Only Get Better"
K-Klass - "Let Me Show You"
Westbam - "Wizards of the Sonic" & "Celebration Generation"
Marusha - her first LP (can't recall the title)
Utah Saints - "Utah Saints"

and, 'loops and tings'? people talk about that, its a trance classic!

i have two Kiss In Ibiza compilations that i still think are fantastic

Cool Jack 'Jus Come'
Ian Pooley 'Rollerskate Disco'
all the Van Helden stuff, remixes ('Spin Spin Sugar' etc.)
Alcatrazz 'Gimme Luv'
Deep Dish 'Hideaway' of course

i always thought this song would be perfect if covered by dag nasty (in their best period)... could work so well as a skaty hardcore tune...

-- Dave Stelfox (destelfo...), August 18th, 2003.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think if it had been that good an idea Snuff would have done it by now...

-- DJ Mencap (lackofinteres...), August 18th, 2003.

Weirdly enough I was in my friend's car last night listening to the new Me First & The Gimme Gimmes album (which is great!) and, in my head, trying to come up the best early 90s rave tunes that were ripe for being covered in a skatepunk fashion such as this. Then I got drunk and forgot them all

Featherweight dance acts from the late 80s & early 90s that released multiple singles (and in some cases, albums):
Bardeaux
Double You
Fun Factory
Twenty-Four Seven
Def Dames Dope
Alex Party
Ice M.C.

... all of which have a place in my heart!!!

Revive after hearing 'Let Me Be Your Underwear' dropped into the middle of a Jayda G mix.

Feels like nu-Balearic and wedding disco revivalism between them have turned a fair few of these into acknowledged classics now.

Hi Tek 3 "Spin That Wheel"

aka the best song ever

destroy

the “late” great

or should I say ‘the poster formerly known as great’?

joeks, bruv

https://live.staticflickr.com/4567/38601523862_0632915217_z.jpg

i'll see myself out then

you got to know how you maaake me feeel!

Morillo is guilty of far greater crimes than the frankly superb 'I Like To move It' tho.

― stevem (blueski), Saturday, 15 March 2003 13:54 (seventeen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

o_O

!!!

Was waiting for that.

I have some old French "Now!" equivalent called Boulevard Des Hits lying around somewhere. Most of it is either hilarious or total shit. Cock Robin? Kassav? Zouk Machine? Hypnoteck? Liza Minelli?!!!!!! ARRGH!

— dog latin (dog latin)
Posted: 17 March 2003 at 19:18

"let me be your underwear" and "spin that wheel" are like undeniable. people hate fun i guess. also come on those are somewhat talked about. joey negro isn't exactly out of the conversation - that one is on one of his compilations from a few years ago. "spin that wheel" is au courant because of octo octa, at least it was last year.

fuck an idm revival i want an electrohouse revival. no one talks about electrohouse. no one talks about edm. i had the illest sex with this kid in his electric daisy carnival bedroom to an edm mix a few years ago. i don't really want to go to edc but i want an edc friend or two in my life so i can check out mixes now and then.

there's a crowd in my small city that is all about searching for and playing their somewhat obscure "thing" defined by pretty strict paramaters and oh my god that hyper-curated extremely tasteful sound can be so incredibly boring. someone posted a teki latex mix on the mixes thread and ra touted it as this example of like fun vocals mixed with sick beats but the beats themselves were just like raw reduced ballroom ish house - again, "tastefully" fun. kinda boring. i wish people would hype it up a little bit. flirt with being dumb and commercial and obvious. heaven fucking forbid.

i never hear anyone talking about reggaeton and that's like an instant party starter. i wish i had a better entry to it - no idea how to start.

someone loan map a time machine so he can go back to 2003-2004 ILM :)

lol

Revive after hearing 'Let Me Be Your Underwear' dropped into the middle of a Jayda G mix

what mix?

but yes to electrohouse from the mid 00s, yes to vocal Jersey garage house from the mid 90s, yes to Frankie Knuckles and David Morales remixes of r&b hits, please

woooord!

this would fit in a mix with "let me be your underwear" afaict

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPwnCxnwb4A

Boxedjoy - it's on her Resident Advisor mix, which is a real break-glass-in-emergency party mix and a delight from start to finish.

we need a jayda g thread she is amazing

oh I've had that pinned to my start bar ready for a day of sunny weather, thanks!

i've been buying a lot of strictly rhythm trash lately, including this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaHfFlAb1fI

unfortunately i could not find the "andy and lamboy master mix"

i also grabbed a couple of planet soul EPs and some speed garage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR67KcD1C8s

i know tim f reps for that

analogue cops got me into this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-qY7TpGO04

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrDi8BO6J40

I LOVE "Hold Your Head Up High", speed garage CD singles are incredibly cheap on Discogs these days

in fact I ended this mix I made during lockdown with it

sotofett

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUwxxBZNs2c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r99hvtVNdk

i got the vinyl for like $3

most speed garage is dirt cheap on discogs

some speed garage is not, including this deep deep connoisseur cut by one of my favorite french hip house madmen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja7VJxGWgRs

you'll recognize the sample of course ... and yes that is jess from jess & crabbe ... starts at $50 on discogs!

if you don't recognize the sample ... you better learn!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nulyok6SpzM

another one of my recent discogs dollar scoops

i think the remit of this thread is probably even less tasteful than strictly rhythm trash and robin s ... but that's all i got ...

planet soul couldn't stay away from the speed up slow down dyanmics trick they first found fame with on "set u free" ... one trick ponies!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaOVaxnK9W8

there is a (LOL) "tresor mix" on the flip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaOVaxnK9W8

oh oops the i meant to post this first

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgUxFgZksgQ

i love love love love the aggressive voguing in these videos

someone posted a teki latex mix on the mixes thread and ra touted it as this example of like fun vocals mixed with sick beats but the beats themselves were just like raw reduced ballroom ish house - again, "tastefully" fun. kinda boring. i wish people would hype it up a little bit. flirt with being dumb and commercial and obvious. heaven fucking forbid.

Ha this was probably me. I totally hear what you're saying, but for me, the kind of dance music I'm into (ie what I post on the reconstructed club thread as if it were my personal blog) is more colorful and fun than most of the bobbins material. To get reductive about it, I'm always looking for the pure rhythmic adrenaline rush that I get from classic Baltimore/Jersey/Chicago/ballroom/regional etc club music, but also with the fresh takes and crazy sound design from people all over that get lumped into 'experimental' or whatever.

eh "colorful and fun" are personal value judgments, no?

i mean at the end of the day even my best records are boring inert pieces of black wax, it's the collective experience of clubbing that is colorful and fun, and that can be soundtracked by literally anything as long as the crowd is right

Of course! That's what I was saying, I get why map would think a Teki mix isn't fun, but to me it's way more fun than 90% of the mixes I hear.

xp

fwiw experimental club is not 100% my thing either but i appreciate your passion for the form jordan and hope you keep posting it to ilx

like i think i found out about the towhead crew / new york dance music comps via your posting and i am thankful

<3

And I enjoy slow filling in the giant gaps in my knowledge of '80s/'90s dance music history, since I basically started with IDM and drum & bass and went from there.

I have so much trashy Strictly Rhythm and West End vocal stuff, the one that I used to love dropping was a weird Marty Thomas record 'Resurrect Me'. Can't find the particular mix on YouTube, sadly, but it's a stomper and people used to love it. Nice to match with Underground Ministries or some Bobien to bring the crowd some Jesus for a sec lol

wow this thread had a nice fun revival! i wish i could do a discogs order, like i need more robin s. in my life.

i was a little too harsh abt the teki latex mix it's actually really good. sorry if i've been unnecessarily antagonistic to you jordan.

I really like that Teki Later mix but it's a very different thing and deliberately so

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cSqRMioRik

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ct5puqTSi0

Basile Boli and Chris Waddle conquering europe with finanical doping and geordifranglais

I'd say pretty much all of Rupaul's Supermodel Of The World album but that same as with Basile and Chris might belong more on the regular bobbins thread don't know where the boundaries are or who drew them, probably someone from the government.

damn this partyboi/kettama set RULES

the visuals and clothes really sell it

and partyboi's killer dance moves ofc

I suppose the premise of the thread less about what is and isn't 'tasteful' and more about what gets written out of narratives (and narratives are constantly rewritten in any case).

I thought about Fluke the other day for the first time in years, who had some pretty big tracks in the 90s that no one gives a shit about these days (one Bjork remix aside).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arnm0FoT1qE

It's Sam Riney from 1988 and its a trip down vibing avenue

xp you know on a similar note i was thinking abt audio bullys and a lot of middling stuff the music press tried to push in the late 90s ... whatever happened to the audio bullys?!? were they as "big" as fluke or was that just a trick mixmag perpetrated on us?

I think as dance music has lost its roots in gay and minority communities and become more mainstream, more heterosexual, more sanitised, a lot of this stuff has been consigned to being untrendy because of how it codes

Like the 18 yr old me who had to fight to drag his indie pals to electrohouse nights in 2006 would never have imagined that 2020 would be filled with bros loving business techno

And that shows in the dance music that's popular now I think - divas and disco are out, big basslines and trance influences are in

(Excuse my disjointed thoughts I'm very hungover atm)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR67KcD1C8s

i know tim f reps for that

― the late great, Saturday, 12 September 2020 19:41 (yesterday) link

One big bad boy of a record.

Octo Octa draws for it a bit too, though I first discovered it over two decades on The Dreem Teem's In Session Vol. II mix (still one of the best DJ mixes ever).

I think as dance music has lost its roots in gay and minority communities and become more mainstream, more heterosexual, more sanitised, a lot of this stuff has been consigned to being untrendy because of how it codes

― boxedjoy, Sunday, 13 September 2020 16:36 (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't really agree with this TBH. I think that historical narratives tend to treat the queer / minority dance scenes very well and downplay the more widespread / white / hetero / basic karen sounds. The issue with minority marginalisation is that the narratives are always playing catch up, e.g. people genuflecting at the alter of "black london" but they always mean historical scenes and not whatever might be going on right now.

Like I've been talking with brad and deej a bit about prog house stuff like sasha & digweed and the drum club and hardkiss etc. And I remember that simon reynolds had a line maybe in the early 00s about how there was "now" (i.e. then, but this anecdote probably holds true) a hot market for old obscure 'ardkore releases but no one cares about the drum club, and he meant that as a dismissal of the drum club but it's actually part of this broader historical trend. It's often the whitebre(a)d stuff that was big contemporaneously but doesn't get to the level of "transcending" club music (your Orbitals or Underworlds for example) who end up with surprisingly low historical profiles.

It's interesting to try to predict whether, say, Bicep will be remembered in twenty years time or if people will be like 'lol what's a bicep'. I suspect the answer to that doesn't have much to do with the quality of the music either way.

you know who cares abt hardkiss and drum club?!?

;)

Me obviously!

i saw digweed a few years ago and the gen xers i was with were entranced but i thought it was garbage lol

there's prog house i like and prog house i hate i guess

I think one take that has for the most part been very critically popular for the last two decades is along the lines of "dance music shouldn't be about middle-class people getting all PLUR in expensive sneakers at a superclub, it should be dirty and nasty in an underground club with the lights off".

In certain contexts that can be a useful corrective - and I remember when I was first getting into dance music in a big way the relative dominance of the Gatecrasher to Global Underground continuum felt vaguely oppressive - but I think there's a risk of applying it too reflexively and ahistorically.

one of the best moments of my life was when i was completely losing my paranoid shit at a rave in LA because of all the lights and assholes taking cellphone selfies and then omar s came on the decks and made them turn off every single light in the hosue except for one purple bulb just behind his feet that was pointed out and at the floor, casting the warehouse into near pitch black darkness and outlining our legs in an eerie eldritch glow <3

i was about to reflexively start stabbing motherfuckers who didn't have the decency to let me get out of the way before snapping their dumb group photos. in the middle of a rave! jfc

i mean that wasn't the only reason i was paranoid ... but it was the only one omar could control ... :-/

oh i already told that story lol ... Omar-S / FXHE

that was the last rave i ever went to ... 39 is too old and crusty to be paranoid at a rave ... let alone 43 ...

sorry for reverie

that was the last rave i ever went to ... 39 is too old and crusty to be paranoid at a rave ... let alone 43 ...

― the late great, Monday, 14 September 2020 00:49 (fifty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'm now imagining this whole story as a monologue delivered over an eerie deep house tune a la Marshall Jefferson vs Noosa Heads - "Mushrooms (Salt City Orchestra Remix)".

haaaaaaa

i saw digweed a few years ago and the gen xers i was with were entranced but i thought it was garbage lol

― Give me a Chad Smith-type feel (map), Monday, 14 September 2020 00:08 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

My unverified sense is that there's a limited window period where s & d were crossed over into Hardkiss sounds - I vaguely remember reading an interview with them where they talked about having their minds blown visiting Florida and hearing Rabbit In The Moon (who were initially associated with the Hardkiss label).

First disc of Northern Exposure 1 is probably the most well-known example of that but it's actually too floaty. My favourite thing that they did is the first disc of Northern Exposure II (which lol is literally called "East Coast") - scintillating melodic breakbeat prog.

But that window closed pretty quickly as the whole global prog sound had really hardened by the end of the 1990s (though haha I guess the contemporary circuit party sound makes late 90s prog sound pretty creative and diverse by comparison).

oooh love this thread for a few reasons ... not to jinx it. some old ilx vibes to it or something.

ive been listening to a lot of stuff that i'm not sure how it codes on the respectability scale ... from the early 90s, a lot of it italian? Dance Floor Corporation stuff. It'll seem like total cheeseball stuff, IE this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIuXc3e8pK0
Ramirez - El Gallinero

but I'm not sure if Balearic revival made it cool or not ... early 90s to mid 90s trance and ... idk these weird italian compilations on streaming services under the label/distro name "Expanded Music Srl" and if you look at their office on google street view it appears to be a gas station in italy. sometimes the comp will have, like, sueno latino on it, and im like oh this is celebrated shit, and then other times its got the sound effect of a rooster crowing, or it has afrika bambaataa on it ... why was afrika bambaataa like insanely popular in early 90s Italy? I told Tim & Brad this story, but I remember my first year at college having a T1 connection for the first time and downloading a ton of music on Audiogalaxy or whatever, and trying to learn about old school hip hop I downloaded the first Afrika Bambaataa mp3 that popped up, Feel the Vibe. I remember being really confused.

Anyway the Expanded Music Srl website has a funny collection of weird dodgy comps with weird art with names like "90s summer party" and "Mantra House Vol. 3" etc... I think there's some pretty decent cheese in here that also occasionally kind of beautiful or moving:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URwq1rq9fJE

But again i'm consuming this stuff at a remove, its place on the respect > cheese spectrum is tough for me to judge, and the rising tide of balearic probably made a lot of this stuff seem cooler, or maybe its too late on the timeline to totally get the effects of the mid 80s stuff?

another mid 90s dance music thing, along the lines of what map was talking about when he mentioned reggaeton ... i think angolan kuduro has some cool shit that should get a revival of interest, imho ... Bruno Castro's "No Fear" CD is from 1996 but it has some rad unique grooves to it, on streaming services you can check out this comp Ondas Do Kuduro which has some of the 90s classics like "Sofia" "Acucar" "Pra Ka Ta" "Parodia Tribal" all of which were on No Fear

https://http2.mlstatic.com/D_NQ_NP_22912-MLB20239451450_022015-O.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcYbnz0ke-s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfTFB6PYRYI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRuc5ifBkjY

I suppose there's two different conversations - there's the dance music we talk about in the magazines and websites *we* read, where people like Jayda G and Octo Octa are celebrated for playing a certain way, and then there's the actuality of going out, which is that the biggest names on the biggest line-ups etc are people playing muscular tech-house.

Also Tim F please invite me to this secret prog listening club as it is a total blindspot in my tastes

http://finn-johannsen.de/2018/06/11/finn-johannsen-twin-cities-no-11/

this mix is something I've come back to a few times over the past few years - it's that soulful, r&b/gospel influenced style of house, funky rather than banging, Frankie Knuckles remixing Toni Braxton and Whitney Houston, late period Masters At Work, the kind of thing you find on CD2 of the lesser Hed Kandi albums. I love this stuff but it's very not cool, at least not just now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9UHcRrCWlI

Tell the world my name, whos that? Andy Cole
I blazed the scene, scored the goal

Lot of releases on smaller labels Fulham, Blackburn, and the long defunct Sunderland, but the more popular Old Trafford stuff probably the best

i completely lost my shit when the 3d animated rooster enters the mix and starts crowing in that El Gallinero track, it is hilarious. and that Ella G track is some cheesy goodness and beautiful too. it's in a very postmodern sweet spot (intentionally?) collapsing low/high & sacred/profane.

stuff like this reminds me of PC Music. like if you just run with it (and you can handle it) you might encounter some divine ineffable state of cheesy bliss... idk if that's a stretch but lots of pop coming out lately pushes the limits of taste the same way, ya? bladee comes to mind. very 2020 but maybe it'll sound just as cornball when we look back in another 25 years. i wonder if artists fucking around making this kind of extreme cheesecore are more or less self aware now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

yea this andy cole track does the same thing! some flavors of cheesiness will put u in a beatific state

Idk abt pc music I’ve been skeptical but i feel like I might have “lost” that battle? But bladee doesn’t seem cheesy to me it seems like ppl just think it’s cool stuff trying to seem cheese but lacks the go-for-broke mercenary thirst for success or s thing

yea, prolly right about bladee and all that.

getting back on track, i’d been looking for a place to post this Paradis record Recto Verso. (was there a thread for underappreciated indie pop albums? i thought there was but couldn’t find it.) it’s a great album that went very much under the radar, but somehow it’s the now most valuable thing in my vinyl collection. also it’s rather proggy, and i too would be interested in the prog listening club

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9NnukHxmzY

D-40, but I think there is a kuduro revival happening through a lot of Nyege Nyege and Principe stuff, but much of what I've heard of it is being put into the more "post-reconstructed" genre. https://soundcloud.com/nyege-nyege-tapes/dj-chengz-lucian-kuduros-mix-tape-side-a

Breastcrawl might have a better idea of that sort of thing, tho!

I was literally just listening to this banger when I read this, updating myself on some recent Angolan stuff for the first time in months:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXpXq5rxKdA
New Kiss ft. Leo Hummer & DJ Vlado Poster • Abre o Pé

Kuduro is alive and kicking ass, but confusingly they call it not just that in Angola, but also “Afro-House”. I’ve been posting this stuff on the Rolling Afro thread since I found about “Sem Maldades” by Os Santiegos in 2018.
Both the music and the dancing are incredibly high-octane and fun as hell. I tend to have a couple of days every year when this bug bites me and I feel like this is the best music in the world. Producer DJ Vado Poster is pretty much a genius. brb posting some of this shit on Rolling Afro!

it’s DJ *Vado* Poster, sorry

Yah I’ve been keeping up w new Angolan stuff too I’m really into this song:

https://youtu.be/NVkpPRu77Js
Dj Malvado - amingas

But I never see ppl call it kuduro for some reason

I think of principe etc as a different thing since it’s not really based in Angola and they themselves seem not to call it that idk

that’s exactly why that “Afro-House” moniker is so confusing: DJ Malvado comes at this from the house side of things, so “Afro house” is a very apt description for what he does, even if he incorporates kuduro/batida into his sound like in this track, whereas the stuff I’m talking about (including this and the other tracks I’ve been posting) does this the other way around (note the name of the YouTube channel the track I posted is on!) - the format is 3-minute beat-heavy joints with chanted lyrics (maybe the latter aspect is what makes it ‘kuduro’?)

You could make a comparison with Nigerian zanku (which came up later), where the beats were (initially) processed from Uhuru-style SA house and (later) gqom, but which otherwise stuck to the Naija pop template.

(btw I don’t mean to imply that these are two different musical worlds at all: Malvado and Vado Poster have worked together on several occasions for instance)

this ~tries~ to explain it (couldn’t find anything better tbqh): http://kizombalove.com/en/kuduro-versus-afro-house/

wow @ this Jayda G mix, why didn't I listen to this sooner?!

When "Both Of Us" comes in it is like someone parted the clouds for a pure beam of sunshine

https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=756

Roza Terenzi, proggy and trancey and excellent

hell yes, her solo productions are amazing. i'm especially fond of this EP: https://rozaterenzi.bandcamp.com/album/lets-ride

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/arts/rashaad-newsome-assembly-exhibit.html?fbclid=IwAR29Cwi9nOHB_hBGiE_70Ljlxj0l-kFgBeTTHu7NdsPcrIRpmJH4jdz0Xzs

Vogueing in Rashaad Newsome exhibit/ performance/ discussion/theatre/ art piece in NYC

Vogueing runs like a thread throughout “Assembly,” Newsome’s grand, opulent and smart exhibition at the Park Avenue Armory. The project goes light years beyond his formal forays into vogue, weaving together a video installation, collages, sculptures, an hourlong performance with dance and singers; and a workshop conducted by Being, a cloud-based artificial intelligence that Newsome designed. “Assembly” is a rich sensory experience, as well as a springboard for rethinking the roots of American culture.

I feel like we're on the cusp of a hard house revival. I'm noticing DJs dropping tracks in Boiler Rooms and Essential Mixes which were considered naff even the first time around for being bouncy and over 140bpm. I'm into it, to be honest.

Yeah hard house and trance are defo back

My DJ mate who's heavily into early 90s rave revivalism told me recently that hard house and trance were just around the corner, and that we should think about putting something on that spanned this spectrum. Meanwhile, I went to Trade's delayed 30th birthday event at Egg last month, and danced to hard house for the best part of 12 hours, something I've not done in over 20 years. Damn, that felt good.

I feel like the trance revival has been ongoing and in different forms for the past few years - all that "deconstructed" Lorenzo Senni stuff, for example. Whereas hard house, as a seperate thing, seems to be making a rehabilitation in a way I've never really picked up on before. Even someone like Ben UFO is in Instagram videos playing Tony De Vit singles, which I couldn't have forseen a few years ago.

I wish I had been old enough to go to Trade, both the culture and the music sound amazing. I love this documentary from Channel 4 from the late 90s about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZqmjV_IydY

I went regularly to Trade from 1994 to 2000. Just the best club ever. The vibe was once described as “frenzied and mellow”, which sums it up perfectly.

I’m looking forward to no longer having to talk about the hard house 12”s I put out in the late 90’s /early 00’s as some kind of guilty past I have to atone for.

My first underage club visits were to jungle / D&B but my real clubbing honeymoon was to hard house and trance at the Hip’po in Cardiff and tbh I had a whale of a time bouncing around to joyous nonsense like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5xXGbSd_o0

Used to love Hippos. Was a regular there in the early to mid-90s (and also the techno night they had downstairs on a Friday)

Yep ‘ID’ and ‘Sacred Grooves’ (I think) downstairs, fun times.

Went to Trade a couple of times in the mid 90s. Loved the club, loved the culture, didn't love the music. :)

As an aside, in the mid 90s a friend of mine ran a successful Thursday night club playing ultra deep house and techno. He used to go on and on about how he had the most sophisticated audience in the city. I was always a bit cynical about his bold claims and figured people mainly just liked going out to that particular club and were not really too invested in what he was playing.

I would play there from time to time and decided to try out an experiment. I mainly stuck to the vibe playing Mood II Swing and Basic Channel type records. But about an hour in, I decided to mix in this Hard House promo I’d been sent that week that was completely OTT, with every BIG record trope imaginable including having a 128 bar mega roll breakdown. He ran over to the booth in total horror to ask what the **** I was doing. I just pointed at the dancefloor which was going off to a level never previously seen at his night. The entire club was on the dancefloor, going bonkers, the bar staff were up on the bar etc. etc.

I don’t think he ever fully forgave me.

128 bar mega snare roll breakdown.

Haha, nice story!

Trance has definitey been a thing for a fair few years now among trendy DJs - and TBH there’s not much between the large commercial techno popular now and hard house.

I want to know what this 128 bar snare roll track is now :D

i wish i could remember. Some long lost white label promo.

Probably easier to list all 10 hard house / trance tunes without that kind of breakdown

Haha, very good.

I feel like I missed a trick 10 years or so ago when I had a friend who lived in Brixton and was always raving about the vibe at the hard trance nights at the sadly departed 414 club. At the time the idea of dancing to anything above 130pm filled me with dread.

love stirmonster's story. i had a similar experience last summer but with an old vocal house tune. never put too much stock into other djs is my motto, trust yourself. no one knows anything, you know as much as anybody. anyway, i know absolutely nothing about hard house other than i'm staying in my slow 130 bpm and below lane for now. xp lol

itt: stirmonster pretends to have forgotten the joy of playing "Cafe Del Mar"

never put too much stock into other djs is my motto, trust yourself. no one knows anything, you know as much as anybody.

need to put this on a card and frame it or something

itt: stirmonster pretends to have forgotten the joy of playing "Cafe Del Mar"

coincidentally i recently found a circa 92/3 mix tape of mine and it has the Kid Paul mix of "Cafe Del Mar" and i got the chills listening to it. i can almost imagine playing it again now (pitched down).

i'm staying in my slow 130 bpm and below lane for now.

i love that 130bpm could be considered slow.

I also love that story.

130 is pretty much my basement tempo, yup. :)

i am in my 50s, and yet one the things i would still like more than anything is to experience a stirmonster session.

it's never too late!

last party i did there was a bunch of 18 year olds having their 1st ever time in a club (they were infinitely more mature than i was at 18) and a guy celebrating his 70th birthday. They all got along great.

I was working the cloakroom tonight at an event that was about "90s techno" and the last ninety minutes played was all from the Ministry Of Sound/Kisstory axis of "trance classics." But it was all what I would consider the worst end of it - Sandstorm, Seven Days & One Week, Children. I'm unreasonably fond of the stuff that works as pop music - your Sash and Alice Deejay type of stuff - and I say "unreasonably" because I know it's beyond reasoning. I also love the tougher, more muscular stuff that goes towards hard house - Time To Burn, The Launch, Synth & Strings - it feels so much more camp in its dramatics. But ninety minutes of ~moody pads~ and protracted snare build-ups is hard going, the genre's rote moves feel emotionally austere and the grooves aren't interesting enough to be rhythmically captivating, plus all those cheap preset textures.

Basically I want the revival to be more Tony De Vit and less Paul Van Dyke.

Is this finally time for the reassessment of Richard humpty vission’s “big floor funk”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEPc6T4PiFo

Worse still is psychology of un voyeur, das person who is aware of his highest moralism but copes with perversions in his worldview that justify morality. Bovine Marquis De Sade, a bizarre all-encompassing childish claim, possesses the qualities necessary to criticize judgment. A liberal Autonomous Dustbin. But wherever my gaze wandered I was in the same extraordinary position: apart from the two responsibilities, sometimes shrill cries of joy and many blasphemies, sometimes loud, there was no sound that one would have liked to hear. Perfect order prevails over everything that was in motion; if there were very rare clashes, a gesture by the presidents or censorship would soon lead to silence; the most appropriate activities cannot take place more calmly.
problem is, Americans didn't know how to do the MDMA all together fratboy homophobie, so they never came home hauzemuzik even though they invented it! pop music is not to overthrow Protestantism, obviously wrong. Before puberty, your civilised CV want to make feel supreme, and in that case you would NEVER copulate like innocent, brutal, and angry dog. At some point I find this negative very pathetic, completely immature!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VMSWE-gjMg

Damn I was just going to say that

neo-hard house
https://davequam.bandcamp.com/album/aether-binge