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.

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