GeneratioNext⏩ - The Dolphin Album Pack

A month behind on my end of summer themed batch for my Patreon ‘Reactor Mode’ supporters but will be shipped next week finally. Was real fun making this one out of my Fluid / Depth (a literal dolphin DAW for PS1) stream from last year. Not pictured: a bonus EP for the two longish tracks that couldn’t fit onto 1 CD. Next release will be sent in December which is usually PS1 themed month for me so probably be based around that... anyway, thanks @ the current and future patrons! [full video album] [patreon]

(2008, Underground Access, UGA-010) Bootleg remix of Jamiroquai by Timmy Regisford.

Tracklist:

I know you like it • Tokyo 018 • Time traveling • This moment • Timeless • Take yours • Night drive 2.0 • Simoon • Lins • Bass man

Spotify ♪ Bandcamp ♪ YouTube

Cesária Évora - Sangue De Beirona (Main Pass) (in Remixes Par François K. & Joe Claussell, 1999 (2014 re-edit))

Today's compilation:

Hed Kandi: Disco Kandi 2000 House / Garage House / Nu-Disco

Good God, what a terrific pair of discs here from the ever-consistent dance comp label Hed Kandi. With this first ever installment in their Disco Kandi series, the UK outfit supplies a steady stream of ephemeral house bangers from the late 90s and 2000, with a lot of the selections sounding contemporary, but also managing to channel an invigorating old-school disco spirit too. And many of these glitz-glammy, high-quality productions also collectively continue to progress from the sonic tradition that first started in famed New York DJ Larry Levan's Paradise Garage nightclub in the late 70s, where he nurtured a more vocally soulful and R&B-rooted house sound into the late 80s that would come to be known simply as 'garage.' And after the Paradise Garage's closure, that garage sound would find popularity at a club in New Jersey called Zanzibar too, where Tony Humphries would continue to spin it.

Now, despite a few of these tracks having somewhat remarkably high YouTube play counts, all of them were and still are definitely underground; that is, except for one. And this particular tune that I'm referring to wasn't just mainstream, but it really managed to lace the hell out of a lot of US contemporary hit radio stations back in the late 90s, even though it only ended up peaking at #52 on the Billboard Hot 100, overall. Basically, if you tuned into your local pop or more dance-oriented station on anything close to a regular basis back then, there's almost no way that you could've avoided one-off supertrio Stars on 54's cover of Gordon Lightfoot's 1970 soft folk-rock classic, "If You Could Read My Mind," which saw Amber, Jocelyn Enriquez, and Ultra Naté teaming up to record a song for the soundtrack to the disco period flick, 54. Really classic radio gold right there that a lot of people probably haven't thought about in a long while.

And then just as you're finished reminiscing on whatever fond memories you might hold that are associated with that particular song, quite possibly the most impressive track of all within this two-disc set ends up directly following it: the Matthew Roberts and Richard Fite remix of Eclipse's "Makes Me Love You." This one has a big, sun-shining pool party vibe to it, as it combines lustrous disco strings, funkily plucked guitar, a fuzzy-thick corrugated bassline, and piano keys, all while employing a lovely filter technique, which is that really popular thing that house musicians got to doing around this time period, in which certain elements sound distant and submerged, and as they continuously loop, keep sounding closer and clearer, until they satisfyingly breach the surface and hit their glorious peak. And that's maybe my favorite type of house music in the whole world 😊.

So, a really enjoyable way to spend over two and a half hours here, with a hefty dose of  super sleek house tunes, a lot of which are on a nu-disco and garage tip. And it was collected by the always seemingly on point Hed Kandi label too, which has never steered me wrong before!

Highlights:

CD1:

Cunnie Williams - "A World Celebration (Mousse T's Party Lick)" Lovestation - "Teardrops (Joey Negro 12" mix)" Bini + Martini -" Happiness (B+M's new re-edit)" Paul Johnson - "Get Get Down (Dancefloor dub)" Fire Island - "There but for the Grace of God (Joey Negro mix)" Soulsearcher - "Can't Get Enough (vocal club mix)" Stars on 54 - "If You Could Read My Mind (original club mix)" Eclipse - "Makes Me Love You (Morning Star mix)" Darryl Pandy meets Nerio's Dubwork - "Sunshine & Happiness (Nerio's Dubwork mix)" Glaubitz & Roc - "Sunshine Day (extended mix)" Jaydee vs. Bo Horne - "Spank (Exit EEE's alternative mix)"

CD2:

The Lab Rats presents The Experiment feat. Lisa Millett - "Music Is My Way of Life (Lab Rats Main Experiment)" Choo Choo Project - "Hazin' & Phazin' (Lab Rat's Funkin' With Choo Choo)" Sun Kids feat. Chance - "Rescue Me (Bini + Martini 999 Funk mix)" Phunkie Souls - "The Music (Richard F "Defected" re-edit)" Z-Factor - "Make a Move on Me (extended 12" mix)" Michael Moog - "That Sound (Full Intention mix)" Novy vs. Eniac - "Superstar (Full Intention mix)" Duke - "So in Love With You (Full Intention mix)"

Home, Ballard, Seattle, 2023.

Disco Kandi 2 (2000)

“Frankie is a DJ and record collector from London, UK. He collects records of all persuasions but US garage and underground house forms the bulk of his toolbox. This session works in the harder, more raw and tracky cuts from Frankie’s bag. Featuring joints on Cajual/Relief records, Force Inc., Music Works and Thumpin’ Records, this is one for the books.”

🌐

𝕮𝖔𝖒𝖚𝖓𝖎ó𝖓 · Comunión Mix #54 | Frankie Aglow

A-T-3 255 Gwen Guthrie - Seventh Heaven

Gwen Guthrie's second album Portrait is released in 1983. It was recorded at Compass Point in Nassau with the same all-stars as her debut, Sly Dunbar, Robbie Shakespeare, Wally Badarou, Darryl Thompson, and Steven Stanley. As you'd expect from such a prolific songwriter and backing singer with a great supporting cast It's a terrific album

Larry Levan had remixed It Should Have Been You which was released as a single from her debut album. Levan was given the master tapes for Portrait and to Island Records horror spent too much expensive studio time to their liking remixing it, and this was when record companies had budgets to spend on lesser known artists. I remember watching the Brian Duffy documentary The Man Who Shot the 60s, Duffy produced the now iconic sleeve artwork for David Bowie's album Aladdin Sane, his advice to Bowie was spend as much of the record company's money as you can and then to recoup there investment they have to promote you. Promotion budgets are a big deal, you could have made they greatest album of all time but if nobody knows about it it's going to get buried. It helped that by Aladdin Sane had had his breakthrough and was already being seen as a major star, Gwen Guthrie wasn't that fortunate

Perhaps Larry Levan didn't spend enough of Island's money because his remixes sat on a shelf for two years and other than his remixes for Peanut Butter and Hopscotch the only place you could here Larry Levan's other remixes from these sessions was at the Paradise Garage played off reel-to-reel tapes. Paradise Garage was one of the most famous clubs on the planet and it was Larry Levan that made that happen. Gwen Guthrie became known as 'The First Lady Of The Paradise Garage' because of her live performances there and Levan playing his remixes of her records in his sets.

In 1985 Island release some of Levan's remixes as the mini-album Padlock (Special Mixes). The mini-album is credited to Levan with Gwen Guthrie demoted to featured performer alongside Sly Dunbar, Robbie Shakespeare, Wally Badarou, and Darryl Thompson. We can extract from this decision that it was decided by the record company that Larry Levan was creating demand for these records to be put out and it was Levan' name that would get punters handing over their cash. Padlock sold much better than Portrait once it was released, Peanut Butter was reissued, Padlock was released as a single, as was Seventh Heaven (in the UK this came out around the time of Gwen's biggest success Aint Nothing Going On But The Rent in 1986, with Levan's remixes of Getting Hot and It Should Have Been You off Gwen's self-titled debut)

Going back to the issue of samples like I mentioned the other day Seventh Heaven, the Larry Levan remix, has been sampled in hip hop, rnb, and dance music over and over for tracks by the likes of Notorious B.I.G., Faith Evans, Busta Rhymes, Leaders Of The New School, Redman, Dilated Peoples, El-P, Public Enemy, Amil feat Beyoncé, Eric Sermon, Kenny Dope, Spinna, Tek 9, Dj Krust...

On a decent system with those synths and drums flying past you is my idea of heaven

[ Tomonori Sawada: Jet Set Radio - Electric Toothbrush ]

(1993, K4B Records, K4B003)

Tracklist:

Bells • Night drive • Gameing man • Fuyuukan • Gotta have house • Machibouke • Way of jungle • Quiet town of tokyo • Right here right now • Sora sky magic • Water melodies • Nippon no natsu • Rain • Orange moon

Spotify ♪ Bandcamp ♪ Youtube

Today’s compilation:

12" Of Pleasure 1994 House / Garage House / Dance-Pop

Firmly settling right into the middle of Pride Month with this look back at some vintage, early-to-mid-90s, certifiably gay dance jams. UK label Almighty Records has been a very popular outfit among the gay crowd since its 1989 founding, and with this album from '94, they put together a little collection of tunes that was made of both dance covers from their own catalogue as well as tracks licensed from other labels.

Now, you all know that classic early-to-mid-90s gay club sound. It's that carefree shit that makes you feel like you're dancing blissfully on a light and fluffy cloud. High-pitched string synths that surge and squeal; sharp, rich, and cheery piano chord stabs; soft combinations of kicks and snares; and a female vocal that exhibits some passion as she typically sings about love. It's deadly when done right, but by that same token, given that there's a basic formula for it, it can also feel, well, a bit formulaic and disposable at times too.

But there's two songs that manage to pull that sound off exceptionally well here: the "Woman's Prerogative mix" of Sybil's "When I'm Good and Ready," and the "Mad March Hare mix" of Kylie Minogue's "Better the Devil You Know." Both of these tunes apply that early-to-mid-90s gay dance formula, but Sybil's song comes with these added polka-dot electronic bleeps on it, and Kylie's song is just a prime example of the formula being executed perfectly. And both songs on the production tip involved the same people too. Sybil's was written and produced by Mike Stock and Pete Waterman, and Kylie's was by Stock, Waterman, and Matt Aitken. That Stock, Waterman, and Aitken trio were known as prolific UK pop producers for quite some time too, but Aitken ended up splitting from the other two in 1991.

But my favorite song of all on this album is UK dance group Undercover's 1992 poppy house cover of Gerry Rafferty's 70s smash hit, "Baker Street." The original version of this song features probably the second most iconic use of saxophone in the entire pop music canon—just behind George Michael's "Careless Whisper"—and Undercover cleverly decided to bring it back in the early 90s to use within a dance context. But while that sax part is from the 70s, the use of it here in Undercover's version is also somewhat paradoxically way ahead of its time too, because it's utilized as the song's drop, which seems to presage that whole early-to-mid-2010s craze when using sax as the drop in a dance tune appeared to be all the rage. And I'm sure that Undercover's version received some updated remix treatment in that era too.

I also don't think that most Americans are aware of this song either, because while it was an enormous top-fiver throughout most of Europe, it didn't actually end up charting Stateside at all. So, you could probably slay something like a wedding dancefloor with this in the US, because practically no one would be expecting to hear that famous Gerry Rafferty sax part, and once they did, it might cause them all to collectively lose their shit 🤯. It would probably work better with the radio edit instead of this extended version though, because the radio edit hides the sax until the chorus, and this extended version actually opens with some of it.

And another reason why I particularly adore this song is because it also incorporates my favorite synthesizer sound from this era: the Korg M1's Organ Preset 2, which has been used in a whole bunch of different songs, and perhaps most famously in Crystal Waters' "Gypsy Woman," which is another early 90s gay club classic.

Much of this album honestly feels a bit lacking almost three decades later, but the few tunes that I've mentioned in this post here still make for some exquisite examples of terrific early-to-mid-90s gay dance fare.

🏳‍🌈Happy Pride!🏳‍🌈

Highlights:

Sybil - "When I'm Good and Ready (The Woman's Prerogative mix)" Kylie Minogue - "Better the Devil You Know (The Mad March Hare mix)" Undercover - "Baker Street"

More certifiably gay dance posts:

1995 Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras: The Party Anthems Nights in Heaven