12 years ago! That's mad. At the time, Basement Jaxx were producing consistently complex and danceable tracks and were honorary members of the US Mongoloid crowd dominated by Nitebreed, Van Helden, Sanchez and Sneak. It wasn't a huge surprise then when Sanchez remixed this track by the wonderful Corrina Joseph.
The original contained the baseline and vocal sample that were later to become the huge hit Flylife, but the Sanchez mixes ditched most of the original elements and brought in a hypnotic latino riff that relentlessly turner and turned and reeled you in. However, the vocal mix ended rather abruptly and I thought it would be good to link the vocal with the dub, so that's what I did!
The result is 13'39" long, which will drive you mad if you don't like the song, or wild if you do!
Have a listen here.
You can download my Corrina Joseph - Live Your Life With Me (Narcotic Vocal mix/dub Fist fusion) here(19MB)
The Atlantic Jaxx catalogue is now available for legal download on sites such as Juno, so I've disabled the download of this edit.
About a month ago, when I was writing my post about Zami Girl, I had a look on Discogs to see what else the ä Records label had released. That led me to Saundra Williams and my interest was piqued. I found a scatchy vinyl rip of the track on a blog, but the MK mixes - that I'd never heard of before - were pretty damn good, so I ordered the CD through Amazon. The CD finally came through today, apparently haing taken its merry time by travelling via New Zealand. Very odd.
Saundra Williams was active in the early nineties, although she's still ticking along today. Her website is clunky, has butterflies buzzing round it, an excruciating bio and - best of all - a welcome song that launches with the homepage, with Saundra herself singing a special sultry R&B number, "Welcome to Saundra Williams dot com". Fabulous.
Although her site says once you've heard her you'll never forget her, I Want It, I Need It (Real Love) has not found its place in the garage hall of fame. Perhaps the catchy name had something to do with it? It sounds much like a Robin S copy, but the song isn't half bad, and the MK mixes have aged rather well.
I decided to take the MK vocal and dub and put them together, to form one 13-minute whole. The two mixes were not at the same BPM, which is unusual, so the dub is basically pinned onto the end of the vocal. Not rocket science for sure, but nice stuff all the same.
You can download Saundra Williams - I Want It, I Need It (Real Love) (MK Vocal / Real dub Fust fusion) as an audiophile FLAC file here (97MB) or an iPod-friendly AAC file here (26MB).
Found this - or rather came across this again - on the ever-wonderful Finest Def Mix blog. Back in the days I only really ever knew the amazing, sulty Carl Craig mix that was on the Late Night Sessions II by X-Press 2, still an amazing compilation.
Finest Def Mix is wonderful, but their posts are in mp3 format at only 192kbps, which has a nasty effect on sound quality. I loved the two Morales mixes on this CD so much that I went and bought the CD-single so I could do my own Fist fusion.
Using the beginning of the instrumental, I then mix into the vocal version and add an extra but of piano at the end, resulting in a mix that lasts over eleven and a half minutes. I'm really pretty pleased with it and it's my favourite track of the moment! Can't believe it's 13 years old...
Have a listen if you like!
You can download Incognito "Out of the Storm (Morales Sleaze / Instrumental mix Fist fusion)" as an audiophile FLAC file here (84MB) or an iPod-friendly 256kbps VBR AAC file here. (22MB)
Yaki-Da was a girl group dreamed up by Ace of Base member and producer Jonas "Joker" Berggren. And they were awful. I mean, what does Yaki-Da mean already? What is that squiggle logo after their name and why does it feature so heavily in their videos if no-one can understand it? Did a blind person design that cover? We will never know. All the signs indicated that, after the cod-reggae codswallop of Ace of Base, Yaki-Da were destined to be pants.
However, as time has proved over and over again, crap music sells. Often, the crappier it is the more people like it (see Ace of Base). And thus Yaki-Da were thrust upon America with their début single "I Saw You Dancing", the audio equivalent of retsina-smelling vomit, accompanied by a dire video and terrible lyrics such as "Just look into my eyes / And I'll take you to paradise" or "Say Yaki-Da my love". Frankly, if my love said Yaki-Da I'd take him for a brain scan.
Here's the original video so you can see and hear for yourself. Perhaps it had Mediterranean camp sites slow-dancing all summer, but I doubt that many wiggled to it outside of Sweden.
Terrible, and definitely not club fodder, so Polygram decided to have it remixed by wunderkind of the time Armand Van Helden. And the incredible happened. He managed to turn it into something of pounding, glistening beauty. Ditching everything - thank God - except the 'I' of the title (because otherwise the label would have had a fit) and the line "I'll never be the same again" (quite true in this case), it's still my favourite ever Armand Van Helden remix, and I was lucky enough to be able to tell him so when interpreting for him in Paris years ago. He was already very slick and sure of himself back then, and although I don't like his recent material at all, this still gives me shivers down my spine when I listen to it (and brings back memories of amazing nights out).
I Saw You Dancing reached 54 on the Billboard hot 100, a fittingly lukewarm performance. The group released a few more singles, even a second album. Shite. All of it. But at least they gave us the greatest Armand remix of all time, and for that I am eternally grateful.
You can download Yaki Da "I Saw You Dancing (Armand's Serial Killa mix)" here (17MB AAC file)
For years I though this track was by Zami Girl. Zami Girl is actually the title. Poor Adele Bertei didn't even get a credit on the cover. But then this is quite a strange track...
Bertei (I have now learned) had a moderately successful career in the 80s as a sort of Madonna copy, recording with Jellybean (even appearing on Top of the Pops here) and having a bit part in Desperately Seeking Susan! Other bubblegum efforts were released with help from Thomas Dolby and Scritti Politti (here).
But Adele had a darker, more political side and in 1994 this expressed itself through Zami Girl. With its delightful refrain of "Ballbreaker. Dyke. Bitch", E-Zee Posse-style raggamuffin delivery and lyrics exhorting lesbians everywhere to reappropriate the insults hurled at them, it's hard to believe that anyone thought it would be a hit. However, it was produced by the same team as RuPaul's Supermodel, which probably explains how the track came to receive pretty damn fine remixes from Johnny Vicious - at the top of his game - and Junior Vasquez.
This was a time when BPMs were nearer 118 than 130 and although the track has been mostly forgotten (the CD isn't even on Discogs), stumbling across it again was a pleasure. Still not convinced by that mock-Jamaican accent though...
You can download Adele Bertei "Zami Girl" (51MB) here
I always thought that Pia Zadora was Italian. In fact she was born to Italina/Polish parents in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1954. After a rather up and down acting career (i.e. she wasn't very good) she moved on singing, where she was more readily accepted, by the masses at least.
She was 35 in 1989 when even the singing career seemed to be faltering. Heartbeat of Love was one of her last singles (check out"Dance Out of my Head" here too, it's rather good) and she's all but disappeared for the last decade. In 2000 she looked like this, so perhaps staying hidden for a while would be a good idea?
Before disappearing, she did give us Heartbeat of Love, a distinctly average song that some bright spark at CBS thought should be remixed by Clivilles & Cole, and frankly why not? If anyone could shine this turd, they could. Their Freestyle mix is 'heavily inspired' by Yellow Magic Orchestra, and the house mix pinches bits of Lil' Louis' French Kiss, a huge hit that year. Using cheeky hooks from elsewhere was a C&C strong point.
The result isn't half bad, although Pia's weedy vocals are extremely evident at times. It is however fairly rare on CD (one copy here on amazon.com and strangely a couple here on amazon.fr if you're interested.)
So, a curiosity rather than a classic, but surely anything by Clivilles & Cole is worth a listen?
You can download Pia Zadora "Heartbreak of Love" here (57MB)
It is sometimes sobering to look at the dates on some of your favourite releases. 1992 was 17 years ago for Christ's sake! That's like listening to the Charleston when everyone else has moved onto rock 'n' roll. Anyways...
Back in the days when Madchester was raving and all indie bands were being remixed, Andy Weatherall was riding high. His remixes for One Dove were hot and I especially remember stories of how his Sabres of Paradise takes of Espiritu's "Conquistador" were changing hands for £100 (whether that was true or not, you can now get them for 99 pence). Silliness.
Flowered Up were a Happy Mondays-a-like, but Weekender was an epic track with a memorable short film for the video, and Weatherall's 'Audrey Is A Little Bit More Partial' mix now sounds much like an epic garage track; it's nearly 17 minutes long and has a great change in tempo in the middle, just like some of Johnny Vicious' best mixes. I'm a sucker for a long mix, and a tempo change, so rediscovering this was a pleasure.
If you fancy a bit of house-not-house, garage-not-garage, disco-not-disco, call-it-what-you-will-but-I-think-it-was-pretty-groundbreaking-then-and-still-amazing-now, you can download Flowered Up "Weatheral's Weekender (Audrey Is A Little Bit More Partial) here (31MB).
12 years ago! That's mad. At the time, Basement Jaxx were producing consistently complex and danceable tracks and were honorary members of the US Mongoloid crowd dominated by Nitebreed, Van Helden, Sanchez and Sneak. It wasn't a huge surprise then when Sanchez remixed this track by the wonderful Corrina Joseph.
