To The Other Side...

This record has been doing my head in for the past couple of weeks now. It's not the music, it's more me trying to get to the bottom of who is behind it...

Track : THE DOORS - "BOSSA ROCKER"

This cheeky white label bootleg has been doing the rounds since the beginning of this year. I stumbled across it a few weeks back whilst looking for records by my favourite remixers of the past couple of years, Yam Who?, and it was hiding in amongst their stuff in my local record shop.

Is it the work of them? I dunno. It could be. It's very similar to the sort of ideas they pursue under that guise and their Blackbeard one.

But, to confuse matters more, in trying to find info on it, i've also seen the record referred to as "Break Through This" and credited to Bossa Rocker.

I've also heard a rumour that the guys behind GAMM, the remix / edit side label of Sweden's Raw Fusion records, are behind it too...

Ach, who cares. I should just let stuff like this go and just relish in the music.

I will tell you this though, it does feature The Doors.

There have been quite a lot of lazy remixes clogging up the charts this year. Pretty unimaginative covers of 80's pop songs or just dull producers taking an old tune and slapping a 4/4 beat under it and hoping it sells - whish for some reason, it does...

If you are a Doors fan, don't fear. This track, a reworking of their "Break On Through" is not like that.

This is a tasty re-edit of "Break On Through", I say "edit" as the guys behind it, whoever they may be, have treated this with respect and cleverly use a lot of the original. It's just that they re-jig it into a different order, but it's still unmistakably "Break On Through".

But why "Bossa Rocker" as a title? Well, it's funny, I had thought that the remixers had slapped a latin percussion onto this, but on revisiting the original, that latin groove is there right from the start. It just gets swamped by the rest of the track later on.

As this version is aimed at the dancefloor, it teases you with the percussion and the infamous riff and although they do add a 4/4 beat to the proceedings, it's very unintrusive. In keeping people on the floor they keep filtering and dropping out the bassline and percussion to maximum effect while loads of Jim Morrison samples, and the lyrics to the song, punctuate it all whilst building up for a break down before Jim yells "WAKE UP!" and it all kicks off again.

In the right hands, on the right dancefloor, at the right time, "Bossa Rocker" would be deadly.

Enjoy.

Go Visit : The Doors

Go Buy : The Doors - Best Of...

Feel free to leave a comment about this track in The Pipe section of the forum

Ta,
Budgie

As Pet Benatar once sang, "Hit me with your best shot..."

Circular Firing Squad Revisited.

If you had read the "What You Sold Me" post from last week then you'll know about Jimmy The Flid sending out custom samples to various producers. If not, then I'll wait for you while you read it here...

Finished? Good.

The Flid had sent the files to HoC's Sie, but he was too busy to do anything with them. After hearing the results of the remixes of "Circular Firing Squad" on the "What You Sold Me" EP. Sie then decided to make some time and return to them.

Those of you that are aware of Sie's attention to detail and production skills will, like me, be glad that he did...

Track : JIMMY THE FLID vs THE BEEKEEPER - "CIRCULAR FIRING SQUAD Ver.2"

I could wax lyrical about this remix, the first under Sie's "The Beekeeper" moniker, but I won't. I want it to blow you away the same way it did to me, as it's not Sie's usual style...

I will say this though, if you're aware of the Future Sound Of London's stuff circa "Lifeforms" and their Amorphous Androgynous period then you're off on the right foot. Take that complex, layered, shifting, beat laden and atmospheric sound that they made during the early to mid 90's and imagine it updated a good ten years later and you are there.

Is that praise enough? Too right it is. It is that good.

Proof, yet again, that Sie has the skills no matter what genre of dance music he turns his hand too.

Shame this was too late for Jimmy's "What You Sold Me" EP. He'll be kicking himself...

Feel free to leave a comment about this track in The Pipe section of the forum

Ta,
Budgie

Sold me? I thought I was getting this for free?

Part Two of the HoC Members Special sees Jimmy The Flid letting us get our hands on his current adventures into the realms of "clicky clicky hiss music", or as it is more commonly known Flid Music...

Jimmy sat in his lab and assembled some strange sound effects and emailed them to other producers asking them to remix or incorporate the noises in any way, shape or form that they fancied. The result is a 5 track EP of intense beats, fuzzy bursts of noise and speaker bursting electronica.

To top it off, if you see fit to burn them to a CD, he has provided us with the cover art. The front of the CD is the main picture above and the back artwork can be found here.

So download, burn it, play loud and enjoy...

Track : JIMMY THE FLID - "CIRCULAR FIRING SQUAD"

First up is Jimmy's own incorporation of the noises he created. "Circular Firing Squad" is a static filled, buzzy electronic drum and bass-esque track with just barely a hint of a plucky string like melody trying to fight through it all. And hey, it lasts for 3 and a half minutes, that's 3 minutes more than his tracks usually run for! (sorry jimmy, couldn't resist the dig!)

Track : JIMMY THE FLID - "CIRCULAR FIRING SQUAD (MOTHBOY REMIX)"

Mothboy on the other hand takes the static and electronic hum and wraps it around a heavy industrial style beat. When I mentioned above about the tracks being "speaker bursting", well, this track is definitely the main culprit as there is a huge bassline running the red all the way through this one... Excellent production on this with the beats being scuzzed up to match the ingredients Jimmy supplied.

Track : JIMMY THE FLID - "CIRCULAR FIRING SQUAD (EMPIRE STATE HUMAN REMIX)"

Mr Spoilt Victorian Child dons his Empire State Human guise for this remix. I dread to think what the BPM is on this as the relentless, but muted, jackhammer beat pounds away good style. The way the track builds is quite interesting as it seems to create the impression that the track is about to explode at any minute. Even after the short breakdown you will be convinced the track is going to kick off, but yet it keeps on building and building adding more and more drum effects and frantic electronics to create a dense, swirling fear before dropping you into that plucky string sample I mentioned on track one. The finale made me grin. If the track had a visual equivalent, it would be like being chased through the woods ala Blair Witch only to be greeted in the clearing by Porky Pig stuttering "the-the-thats all folks!" and the Looney Tunes music kicking in...

Track : JIMMY THE FLID - "CIRCULAR FIRING SQUAD (SOLIPSISM REMIXED)"

Solipsism transplants Jimmy's noises onto a dark ambient head nodder of a track. The first 3 minutes or so has Solipsism adding a glitchy, scratchy sounding beat and adds layers of his own trademark effects to it all. Then, towards the end, the beat veers off to a more sped up version of its former self, as if trying to shake off the deep production that lies on top of it.

Track : JIMMY THE FLID - "WHAT YOU SOLD ME"

This is the latest of Jimmy's tracks. If I was to list the amount of things he cut up and used in it then this post would be some size... The trick he has pulled off here is that even although there was a lot involved in putting this track together if still manages to sound quite minimal. On first listen, it had me scurrying into my CD pile to find my old Main albums, specifically "Hz". Ok, Main didn't use beats like this - a DIY mixture of clicks, bangs and a hint of castanets! - but the sounds and slight melody going on does remind me of their more quieter moments. "What You Sold Me" shows more structure than previous works by The Flid and again this one clocks in at 2 minutes 45! He must have needed a lie down after making it...!

Jimmy thanks and recommends the following people :

Go Visit : Jimmy The Flid
Go Visit : Mothboy and Mothboy @ 8bitrecs.com.
Go Visit : Empire State Human / Spoilt Victorian Child / The Phantom Carriage
Go Visit : Solipsism
Go Visit : Stephen Cairns (artwork)

Feel free to leave a comment about these tracks in The Pipe section of the forum

Ta,
Budgie

Bee Prepared...

Why the (poor) bee jokes?

Well, I often struggle sometimes in describing Trance music, especially those huge big power riffs that appear at the peak of the tracks. The only way I can describe these large, buzzy bursts of sound is by saying that they sound like angry bees trying to burst out of the speakers.

If anyone has a better description then please let me know...

The two tracks below are new Trance tunes by HoC founder member Sie. He may have changed his name, Seraphan being his new guise, but he hasn't changed his ability to pull off some incredibly well produced slices of dance music. Yes, the Trance buzz is there and yes, the angry bee analogy will appear again, so bee warned.

(sorry, I'll stop now...)

Track : SERAPHAN - "INNER SANCTUM (ORIGINAL MIX)"

The start of "Inner Sanctum" throws you a bit of a curve ball. With it's warm chimey riffs, stabs and washes echoeing back and forth in the mix over a thumping big beat, you'd be forgiven for thinking Sie had turned his hand at making an atmospheric, almost techey, house track. It isn't until about half way through that you start to get the inkling that something is about to change. You can hear it off in the distance and boy does it approach fast... Yup, the buzzy bee riff soon rips through your speakers and then disappears again leaving behind a corker of a beat changing breakdown sequence before morphing back to the elements you heard at the start. But, he still manages to tease you enough into thinking those bees are heading back to you at any second...

Track : SERAPHAN - "FLASHPOINT (ORIGINAL MIX)"

"Flashpoint" is different from "Inner Sanctum". Marginally slower, it has more atmosphere to it with the choral sample adding to this feel greatly. The simple bassline nags away perfectly in the background while parts of riffs are laid down and the choir gets chopped up over the top. The buzzy riff soon appears but the difference here is that it is almost marching with the track before those bees get the better of it and pad it all out. Again, Sie shows his skills with the breakdown with the choir hitting a peak and then that bass coming back in bolstered by new percussion and effects for the remainder.

As usual with Sie's tracks, never take them at face value. The attention to detail and depth to his stuff, especially the amount of effects going on in the background, is amazing and always makes for plenty of repeat listens.

And to think I was going to call this post "Sie And His Musical Bees"...

Feel free to leave a comment about these tracks in The Pipe section of the forum

Ta,
Budgie

Time Marches On...

It was inevitable that at some point on The Pipe I would put up some old Chicago House tracks. That scene and sound amazed and influenced my tastes in music as a teenager and to this day it still continues to do so. It was also inevitable that at somepoint a Marshall Jefferson production would appear. In looking out some tracks of his for The Pipe, I ended up being spoiled for choice. So the rest of this weeks posts are dedicated to him and should hopefully cover all the bases with his involvment in that scenes history and its many mutations.

I don't intend to bore you with the History of House Music - if you're interested and want to read a couple of good indepth articles about it then you can do so HERE and HERE - but below is a short potted histroy of the sound.

Born out of Disco, House got it's name from the Warehouse Club in Chicago. The resident DJ there, Frankie Knuckles, used to spin Disco classics and old Philly Soul tracks mixed in with New Wave and Eurobeat tracks from this side of the Atlantic. People who loved the sounds were constantly asking a local record store for that "House style music" that Frankie was playing and they set up a section for these records in the shop - House as a genre was born. Those records in turn influenced a generation of young producers to pick up cheap equipment, start playing with it and recording really stripped down, electronic dance records. They would bung them onto cassette and get their music played in places like The Power Plant (Knuckles' new club after The Warehouse closed down in 1983), The Music Box (Ron Hardy's seminal club) and on the WBMX Hot Mix Five radio show. It was around 1985 that the scene was starting to gain momentum and Larry Sherman, the owner of the only pressing plant in the city, decided to set up his own record label to put out this stuff. The famous Trax label was born and once those records hit Europe they inturn influenced a whole host of people and dance music changed...

Marshall Jefferson was one of those young producers. But his route to becoming one of the main players in the scene was quite different to most. He hated disco. He was a rock fan. It was only by chance when he drove a mate to a local music store, so as his friend could get a new guitar, that the assistant in the shop gave them a demo of the Yamaha 284 sequencer. The assistant managed to get Marshall to buy one, but followed it up with, "if you have a sequencer, you're going to need a keyboard", then "if you have a keyboard, you'll need a drum machine" etc. $9000 lighter, he found himself in his house with a pile of equipment that he didn't know how to use...

From those beginnings he then went on to produce some of the scenes most defining pieces of music and left his mark on both Acid and Deep House. And you can't get better praise when, probably his most famous track "Move Your Body" is dubbed "The House Music Anthem"...

Track : SLEAZY D - "I'VE LOST CONTROL"

After buying his equipment, Jefferson was taken by his friend, Sleazy D, to Ron Hardy's Music Box. It was there that he decided that he wanted to make music that would be played in that club. He made a few tracks and Sleazy handed the tapes to Hardy who played them. A buzz started to build about the tracks, but unfortunately as Marshall was working as a postman at the time, he couldn't make it to the club to see the reaction and his mate was getting all the glory for them!

"I've Lost Control" was one of those tracks. It's recognised as being one of the first Acid House records, due to it's use of the squelchy Roland 303 noise, but the term "Acid" never came about until Phuture's groundbreaking "Acid Tracks" tune that came after it.

The version of "I've Lost Control" here actually doesn't feature the 303 - I wanted to post the more stripped back version - but you can hear the longer and 303 filled version, along with the above mentioned "Acid Tracks" on the pretty damn essential and excellent Soul Jazz comp "Acid - Can You Jack?".

The version here I think is more fear inducing than the more well known one. It's a hard jacking rhythm with cowbells and handclaps going berserk over a tinny beat and the trademark Chicago House hissy hi-hats are coupled with more of Sleazy's slurry vocal and those EVIL laughs and howls.

What I wouldn''t give to have a time machine and go back to the Music Box to see folk going crazy to this. From the sleeve notes of the "Acid - Can You Jack?" album, the Music Box is described as being "minimal to the point of cheapskate design...the room, long and narrow, was painted black. Stacks of speakers lay at one end of the room and the DJ booth at the other, as if someone had set up a makeshift club in a dark and gloomy hallway. The sound system was loud but poorly defined, with the tweeters and midrange on the verge of permenant disintegration. The only source of light emanated from a couple of strobes, which flashed out visual warnings of sonic disorientation..."

You just know that "I've Lost Control" would have sounded great in an environment like that.

Track : VIRGO - "RIDE"

This track from 1989 is relatively new to me. I only heard it for the first time last year on the Eskimo Recordings compilation "Paradisco 3000 : Chicago Boogie". It's a great comp of old and obscure house gems beautifully mixed together and "Ride" is the opener and it sets the tone nicely.

Virgo is one of Jefferson's aliases and sometime collaborative group alongside other Trax talents, Adonis and Vince Lawrence. "Ride" is a moody affair with long drawn out chords, disembodied vocals, THOSE hi-hats, and a bassline that bends and twists throughout the track. It's a lot more polished than "I've Lost Control" but it still has that basic, early Chicago feel to it. The track can also be found on their self titled album alongside their deep house classic, "Do You Know Who You Are?"

(end of pt.1)

Then came the songs...

Marshall worked with some of the best house vocalists around and produced classic vocal house tracks like Ce Ce Rogers' "Someday", Kym Mazelle's "Useless (I Dont Need You Now)" and Sterling Void's "It's Alright".

But the most famous, and probably the most successful, of all the vocal acts he worked with were Ten City. They were a Chicago group who comprised of the talents of Herb Lawson, Byron Burke and Byron Stingley. Stingley's vocals would, alongside other house vocalist Robert Owens, become one of the most definitive voices of the genre. You couldn't mistake it whenever you heard it and nobody could hit those notes quite like Byron. With Jefferson producing, Ten City's songs and harmonies caught the ears of the more soul and R&B orientated listeners on both sides of the Atlantic and opened House up to a whole new audience.

Track : TEN CITY - "THAT'S THE WAY LOVE IS (UNDERGROUND MIX - EXTENDED VERSION)"

I'll be honest with you, I hated this track when I first started to hear it at the tale end of '88. By the start of the New Year it was unavoidable as it entered the UK charts and peaked at no.8. I couldn't care less if Marshall Jefferson produced it. I was too busy wanting to have my mind bended by the harder edged Acid tracks that were becoming easier and easier to pick up. To my ears, "That's The Way Love Is", was far too "girly"...

It didn't sound like a Jefferson track, it had more of a live feel to it and actually sounded like some long lost 70's Disco tune. It lacked the deep, but minimal, production I had come to expect from the man and, at that time, I could have done without those lyrics and Byron's wailing voice. To my ears it wasn't even a house track. Pfft.

I'm posting it though as many years now down the line, I have come to love the song for all the reasons that I hated it for. I love the live band feel about it, the disco wah wah guitar and THOSE strings. Heck, even a smile cracks on my face when I hear Byron sing that cheesy "two people take a vow to be together and live and love each other for ever..." opening line. To my ears now, it's a classic house track.

Track : TEN CITY - "SUSPICIOUS"

Now, this was more like it... I don't know what possessed me at the time but I did succumb and by the Ten City album "Foundation". I hated and loved it - still do - in equal measure. I skipped the clunky R&B numbers and headed straight for the more traditional house tracks. The first one to strike me was "Suspicious". It got my attention as I just loved the atmosphere of the track. This was Deep House. It starts with an echoey keyboard riff, some distant hi-hat business and then Ten City's harmonies come in. So far so good. Then this tremendously deep and hypnotic bassline comes in coupled with the steady beat and Jefferson's love of the hand clap machine. I was lost. The beauty of this track is that it only really has what I have described above and each element only gets a small time in the mix. The building blocks of the track teasingly come and go and constantly keep you guessing where the whole thing is going to end up... A great production.

Track : TEN CITY - "DEVOTION (EXTENDED VERSION)"

The highlight on the album was easily "Devotion". This ticked all the house boxes for me. It's a crossing of the sounds explored on the two tracks above. The deepness of the bass and atmosphere from "Suspicious" mixed with the big string treatment and band feel of "That's The Way Love Is". It also gives Byron Stingley a chance to lay down probably his best vocal performance on the album with his voice soaring and hitting unbelievable heights. "Devotion" is easily up there as one of the best house records ever made. A true classic.

(end of pt.2)

His exploration and progression of the Deep House sound started long before his work with Ten City. Through the years 1986 to 1988 he released a series of 12"s under the name of Jungle Wonz. The production wasn't quite there yet on those early records, but you could sense he was definitely onto something. Of the three Jungle Wonz records, "The Jungle", "Time Marches On" and "Bird In A Guilded Cage", it was "Time Marches On" that was the one I always went back to.

Track : JUNGLE WONZ - "TIME MARCHES ON"

Although the three Jungle Wonz tracks are excellent, I always found "Bird In A Guilded Cage" too short and "The Jungle", a great dance record, had vocals and lyrics that although they were only briefly in the tune, kind of got in the way of the mood of the piece.

On the other hand, Harry Dennis who provided the vocals for "The Jungle" and can also be heard on a couple of records by fellow legendary Chicago House producer Larry Heard under the guise of The It, turns in a much better performance on "Time Marches On".

The track is a bit slower, the spoken word stuff fits the beginning nicely and the track gently develops giving both the music and the refrain of "Time Marches On" enough time to get lodged in your head before some great, but refrained, house piano comes in to lift it up.

A great late night house record.

Track : MARSHALL JEFFERSON PRESENTS TRUTH - "OPEN OUR EYES (MARSHALL'S ELEVATED DUB)"

"Open Our Eyes", was and is for me, Marshall's greatest Deep House record. The production is dripping in atmosphere. A musical Garden Of Eden of running water, animal noises and distant pipes coupled with pseudo spiritual spoken word lyrics to match the mood; "In the beginning there was Paradise, but man, foolish man, wanted more out of life. So he bit the apple to become wise. There he stood naked he realised that when he opened his eyes, he was still really blind..." Get the idea? Corny yes, but it works. Add into the mix Ten City's Byron Stingley on refrained backing vocals and you're onto a winner.

The version I am posting though doesn't have Marshall's spoken word stuff, it's just the music and Byron. The reason? Well, with "Time Marches On" you get some spoken stuff and I didnt want to repeat that sort of style. So here is the "Elevated Dub" mix of "Open Our Eyes" that, with the main bulk of the vocals removed, reveals just how polished Jefferson had got as a producer. All the typical conventions are there, those big and deep basslines, warm chords, precision percussion and my fave, those handclaps!

(end of pt.3)

By the end of the eighties, House had pretty much broken through just about everywhere. Many major labels and artists all wanted a piece of it, So if you wanted a good credible House remix then who better to turn to than some of those Chicago producers.

Track : TOM TOM CLUB - "SUBOCEANA (WAY WAY DOWN DEEP HOUSE MIX)"

Jefferson remixed a couple of tracks from the "Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom" album by the Tom Tom Club. Better known as being members of Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club's original version of "Suboceana" would not have sounded out of place on one of their previous bands albums what with its understated funk and flicky guitar riffs. Here, Jefferson gives it the polished Deep House treatment. Usual stuff, trademark big, deep, warm bass, the claps, piano and some inredibly sharp hi-hats that cut through it all. The great thing about it is that Tina Weymouth's vocal's sound much better in this remix and the music captures the mood of the lyrics better than the original.

Oh, and there is a nice wee cheeky nod to Jamie Principle and his infamous early Chicago track, "Baby Wants To Ride"...

Track : CABARET VOLTAIRE - "SEARCHIN' (CABARET VOLTAIRE REMIX)"

Sheffield's Cabaret Voltaire have never been shy of exploring electronic music. From their late 70's industrial phase, early 80's post punk tracks and CV member Richard H Kirk's continuing work today in the field of electronica, they too were influenced by the House sound of the late 80's.

Instead of getting the Chicago talents to remix their stuff, they went to Chicago to record some tracks for their "Groovy, Laidback & Nasty" album and worked with Jefferson, Ten City and Paris Brightledge. "Searchin'" is the opener on the album. Again, there was no mistaking that Marshall Jefferson sound and coupled with the soft vocals of CV's Stephen Mallinder the track had "balearic" written all over it.

The version above is Cabaret Voltaire's remix. It still has that Marshall feel, but sounds crisper, and with Mallinder's vocals removed you get to hear more of Paris Brightledge's soulful voice.

(end of pt.4)

It seemed during the 90's that Marshall Jefferson disappeared from the studio and was spending more time DJ'ing around the world. Releases by him were pretty thin on the ground and most of the things he did put out were mix albums of either classic Chicago tracks or current house faves. There were rumours abound that he had actually turned his back on music and was spending most of his time playing online games on his PC...

He did release an album, "Day Of The Onion", under his own name in 1996, but, to me shame, I have never heard it. Prior to me buying the "ACID - Can You Jack?" compilation (which prompted this retrospective of his work), the last thing I ever bought that bore his name was a 12" re-edit of the classic Salsoul disco track "Love Sensation" by Loleatta Holloway and that was taken from a mix CD that he put out with other classic Salsoul tunes on it.

I don't know what he is up to now as no new material has surfaced from him for quite some time, but I do know that his work has had a big impact on me and this post is testament to that.

There is only one way to end this week of tracks by the great man and that is with this :

Track : MARSHALL JEFFERSON - "MOVE YOU BODY"

Enjoy.

Go Visit : Discogs entry for Marshall Jefferson
Go Visit : Welcome To The World Of...

Go Buy : The Godfathers Of House : Part One - Marshall Jefferson Presents Timeless Classics
Go Buy : Ten City - Foundation
Go Buy : Various Artists - ACID - Can You Jack?
Go Buy : Various Artists - TRAX 20th Anniversary Collection
Go Buy : Various Artists - Paradisco 3000 Chicago Boogie
Go Buy : Various Artists - Classic House Mastercuts Vol.1
Go Buy : Various Artists - Classic House Mastercuts Vol.2
Go Buy : Cabaret Voltaire - Remixed

Feel free to leave a comment about these tracks in The Pipe section of the forum

Ta,
Budgie