samedi 22 août 2009

Alexander O'Neal - What Is This Thing Called Love (1991)

Since I got hold of this from the finestdefmix blog I've been in love with it. Lush strings, great piano from Terry Burrus, that unmistakeable voice. I did my own fusion of it almost immediately, but the sound quality wasn't great (low bitrate) and I knew it deserved better.

After a few technical problems, I managed to wangle some .wav rips (I would have bought the CD myself but it costs a whopping 30 euros on Discogs!) but never got round to re-doing the mix. Finally, my short holidays this summer allowed me to go back to it and get everything in order.

Using three different Morales mixes I came up with a version that lasts nearly 15 minutes, with quite a bit of diversity in the structure so you never get bored. I also corrected a dodgy edit near the beginning of the main mix (if I can do it, why didn't they?).

Have a listen to my version if you like. I'm pleased with it, and still love the song...



You can download Alexander O'Neal - What Is This Thing Called Love (Dee Classic 12"/Red Zone/Dee Instrumental mix Fist fusion) as a CD quality FLAC file here (93MB) or an iPod-friendly AAC file here (27MB)


Bonus!
You can also download my
Alexander O'Neal - All True Man (Big House mix/instrumental Fist fusion)
here (13'01" - 18MB).

vendredi 7 août 2009

Martha Wash gets the double Fist treatment

Couldn't resist that title.

Give It To You and Carry On. I thought I'd heard these tracks soooo many times that it would be impossible for me to get any more pleasure out of them. I pretty much played the US CD-singles to death back in the day, and yet it's been a while... so I dug them out again, and hearing them anew was actually pretty darn great.

With mixes by Masters At Work, Kerri Chandler, Maurice Joshua, Todd Terry and David Morales perhaps that's no surprise.

My Fist fusions aren't brain surgery, but the first for Carry On does allow you to listen to the Masters At Work mix and dub in one long stretch lasting 11'23". The crossover point is pretty flagrant because the two mixes are radically different, but I think it works.

The fusion of two David Morales mixes of Give It To You is much more satisfactory/successful, clocking in at 12'12".

I always wondered where the CD cover art for this one came from, and now I know: there was actually a video for this version, very obviously pitched at the 'club' (i.e. gay) crowd, with numerous muscled men in white underwear venerating an almost-static Martha Wash. You can read my snide comments over the video below, but the quality's not that good, so you may want to check out a better-quality version here too.

It's really quite hilarious, chock-a-block with clichés and gives a whole new meaning to the lyrics "I'm gonna give it to you".



For info, Martha Wash will be 60 in a few years time.

You can download my Fist fusions of
Carry On here (24MB) and
Give It To You here (22MB).