avril - french kiss

this one is a cover of house classic 'french kiss' by lil' louis and that track was infamous for it's breakdown where louis burns slows down the track and has an orgasmic female vocal sample playing.

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it's a great tune with an infectious riff and bassline and it's spawned so many imitations, remixes, remakes, covers, bootlegs and whatever else. the most infamous one is josh wink's version in 2000 which was a banging techno workout but fred avril's version stays more true to the original concept.

buy here (juno) | youtube

i remember being recommended this by this flamboyant israeli guy named alon klein (aka psy-t and derek) back in '04-05. we used to talk online alot and he like me was an acid aficionado but he was really liking the acid. he made this 400 minute acid set that was quite infamous. anyhow, the hard sell he gave me was "french kiss meets acid breaks" and i was sold. i heard it then and loved it.

this version is quite subtle in the beginning and has an incredible buildup. the first bit is melancholic and it sounds like fred avrils usual soundscapes and then slowly one hear filtered piano chords and the french kiss bassline and then bang. it kicks in mighty fine and just builds until it breaks down into this calm before the storm. the last bit is quite ott and intense but it's so compact so it works. fred avril nailed it with his version.

buy here (juno) | youtube

jay-z - it's hot (some like it hot)

this one is from jiggas fourth album "vol 3... life and times of s. carter" which was a quite uneven album. it had it's hits and it's joints and some of the best beats from people who was on form (premier, timbaland and clue but timbaland mostly). the beats on this comes courtesy of timbo and it's not the most prominent song on the album and it would forgotten like some of the filler (like 'nymp' and 'come and get me') if it didn't have one particular line.

go against jigga, your ass is dense / i'm all about a dollar, what the fuck is 50 cent

which back in '99-2000 i didn't have any clue who jigga was referencing until curtis jackson aka 50 cent blew up internationally with 'wanksta'. now the line was actually a comeback to 50's infamous trolling song 'how to rob'.

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where 50 decided to rag on everyone in order to get attention on him. and it worked, it was trolling at it's finest. a time-honoured tradition in hiphop that stems back to the roxanne wars where rappers figured out that the easiest way to get some quick fame was by calling someone else out rather than have genuine hit records.

'how to rob' is probably 50's best club banger, even better than 'in the club' and fact of the matter is, that song is better than jiggas track. noted is that 50 cent references another joint which is biggies 'dreams' where he instead of calling out all rappers who he wants to screw, he calls out r&b singers he wants to bang.

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but ye about 'it's hot', it has some really corny lines and i still don't get why he would even say

this give my ladies dick, my young hoes pee-pee /
hits in a row like MJ, "hee-hee!" /

i mean referencing michael jackson and 'pee-pee' in the same rhyme, that's almost criminal(ly bad).

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todd terry - somethings going on (loop da loop uptown mix)

terry's original was a big hit both in the clubs and the charts and i think it was the combination of a snappy hook and two divas; jocelyn brown and martha wash belting it out to the fullest. terry had worked with both of these womens vocals on other tracks, notably 'jumpin' and 'carry on'.

i had the original on a compo but was quite chuffed when i saw the cdsingle in a bargain bin. however the fact that i'm one of those tards that aren't pleased until they get the 'right' version of the single wasn't that happy since there was a better single out there and had loop da loop's downtown mix aswell. but the uptown mix was well worth the price of admission.

it's quite '97-'98 and has all of the trimmings of uk house and garage and whatever armand van helden had released earlier that year. it's this big room 4x4 garage joint laced with ragga vocal samples and jocelyn's and martha's vocals tweaked to make it sound more 'sampled'. it's quite fun and i think it's quite kitschy to be blunt about it but once that big bass hits. it's gravy.

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robyn - electric (mad professor shocking mix)

original was the first single of her second album and i remember i didn't like it back then since it didn't have that cheiron kind of vibe. but i enjoyed it later and found a big liking to it when i revisited this track first in '01-'03, i really don't remember but i do know it was somewhere around there. by skulking discogs it alerted me a few years after about the mad professor reworks.

i had then started to really got into dub and introduced to that via reggae of course but through mad professor and his reworks of hamasaki ayumi. finding mp3's originally of this was hard and they had shit quality back then, it was like dodgy 128's and it was at a stage that i couldn't stand anything under 160 but when i finally found the actual cdsingle here in stockholm i was stoked.

mad professor's versions are in his usual kind of digital dub stylings where he keeps a lot from the original but adds his own flavour. here he kept all the best parts from the original and accentuated that and just added more soundscapes.

he changed the tempo from it's 140bpm halftime to a usual dub kind of four on the floor but it's not like his usual dub tunes at this tempo where the rhythm is utterly subdued. it's quite present here for dub at least and the bass is as usual heavy. the second version or dub version (as in the far less vocal version) could really work well with really techno with a rhythmical or percussive backing.

there is two other versions on the cdsingle; a rootsy kind of dub from sweden's own dub specialist internal dread which is nice and a horrendously bad dance remix from patric berger. they can be found on youtube as well i think.

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silvah bullet - chemissinyadiss

i got this a while ago and by that i mean a few years ago, i didn't know silvah bullet really but i know it was a bargainbin buy. i think i bought it on the strength of hearing monkey mafia's "ward 10" or his vocal stylings on jonny l's "20 degrees" and this having a natural born chillers remix. produced by dirty beatniks but to be honest that was a fact pulled from discogs and i have no idea what they done musically even though discogs say that released two albums and a few singles.

anyhow this is a bumping hiphop track with that uk kind of touch. sort of the oldskool type hiphop that the bigbeat acts did with they wasn't doing 'dancefloor stuff'. silvah bullet does his usual patios meets english slang. also the fact that the dirty beatniks used the turtles' 'i'm chief kawananawanaleya' drums is a highlight in my book. the remixes on the single was good though, freewheelin' frankin took the tempo up and did a driving hiphop version with all kinds of bigbeat-y type of sounds and natural born chillers did a chunky jungle version. i just like the original too much. ye.

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jay dee - take dem clothes off (with frank-n-dank)

this one was the one of the reasons why i copped the raw fusion bass-mentality compo some time ago. it's this nasty kind of neptunes sort of groove and instant party vibe. i'm not going to talk about how i know dilla since i don't know much dilla and i'm not one of those guys that talk how dilla was a genius and how i was onto his beatmaking since like slum village. no, infact i didn't even know who he was until the early noughties. yeah, that's a bit shameful but i'm going to be honest. i think i heard one or two slum village tracks but i didn't know who he was. this track is banging though.

buy here (junodownload) | youtube

charlie hunter trio - the pursuit package

i got introduced to charlie hunter trio through 'day is done', a track they did with norah jones back in '01/'02 (when she was still unknown i think). that was like a slow jazz jam with like this great bass. found out later that that bass was played on a custom 8 string guitar which hunter uses to do both guitar and bass parts at the same time. found the copperopolis album a few years ago and i bought it on the strength of 'day is done' and that i wanted to hear more from this group.

took it home and listened to it and with the exception of one track that has this bad ostinato it was quite good. a lot of jazz-funk and some bluesy stylings and just good amount of bass, drums and some sax action. i think the drums could have been recorded a little better to have given them a thicker timbre but they penetrate well but not as good as hunter's bass/guitar. this track is the shortest on this and opens with this great 8bar drumbreak (which jungle producers might want to get on) and then goes into this rhytmic kind of blues groove and it's really tight. love it

buy here (7digital)

skylight - primate exhibit

this one i got from the om records compo 'environments' which was a nice but somewhat patchy collection. 'primate exhibit' felt weird for the compo though as it has a trancy kind of undertone and the rest of the tracks are housey and some breakbeat stylings but they all fit the frame of what om records sounds like. there isn't going to be a long post about the track since i haven't found any additional info about the track or if the person behind it has been responsible for other tracks. 

i really like it though and the combination of the driving breakbeat rhythm and trancelike pad sweeps and the melancholic nature of the melodics are quite good. i think it's best described as distinct'ive breaks records meets compost records.

buy here (om records digital store) note, it doesn't let you buy the individual track



edit, information from the comment by user turningfinal: "'primate exhibit' was produced by alan jones and ryan raddon (aka kaskade). equipment used included akai s3000xl, mpc2000 and a kurzweil k2000. the monkey sound was sampled off a breakbeat record from the uk. the acoustic guitar part was played by gigi love.

this was also information i could find myself on the liner notes and credits for this compilation. i know that i didn't include it because of lazyness and that i had the cd in storage in my basement as i had a copy on my computer.

motorcycle - as the rush comes (daxder dub)

this time around i try to make comments on things i own and bought legitimately, that is if you also want to call buying records and cd's for next to nothing at secondhand stores and bargain bins "legit". however this one is a bootleg remix of (what trancecrackers would call, and don't be scared of that word all of you trancecrackers, own it because that is what we are) the biggest track of 2003, "as the the rush comes".

everyone who was in the scene and remember this track know that part of it's infamy was because it just took ages for it to be released. when it was actually released there was a sense of "about time motherfuckers..." but everyone already had it on mp3 downloaded like weeks after the premier.

trancecrackers know this story already but they also know of the big backlash of this track because of it's hype. let's be honest about it the original is quite simple but as the cliché says, simplicity often works best. the lyrics are quite mundane and jes, despite her efforts as trying to be the next jan johnston, only worked on this track because the timbre of her voice matched perfectly to the slighty moody backdrop.

but is the original still good? i still say yes. i am still proud of owning the positiva cdsingle which i bought the week it came out which as the original sweeping strings version, armins supersaw mix and above & beyond's remix. just wished it had markus schulz remix but i think that along with perry o'neills version was exclusive to armada.

this remix however is quite unknown and i know i hadn't heard it at least a 6 years but it was the first thing that popped in my head when i heard dubstep versions of "as the rush comes" on youtube. daxders version is far from dubstep however it's just spacey and dubby kind of nuskool breaks.

but it shares the aesthetics of alot of the newstyle dubstep (sans wobble) and it's one of the remixes that really goes beyond the safety zone. it's quite over the place in ideas and the airy pads and vocals sampled from the original intro shares place with more atmosphere and bass. all gathered up under this light breakgroove.

it was however 'never finished' and it shows in the mixdown, the problem was if i remember correctly was that audition/cool edit crashed on him when he tried to change the first version he put up and he had to redo it and it was eventually finished, just not 'finished' properly.

as for finding this, yeah the best chance is to look on p2p or allofmp3 or whatnot because it's not that easy to find.

hipp-e - dazed 'n' confused

heard this originally back in '06 and i remember that from that ep (psycho-delics trip two, nrk 104) it wasn't really the track i liked the most from the beginning. it was actually jimi polar's redub of 'make me rock', however this cut intrigued me a lot. it was that heavy shuffled percussion initially but the main attraction is the sample of tata vega's 'get it up for love'. same sample that armand van helden lifted for his version daft punk's 'da funk'. vega's track is a quality electric disco stomper and it features these nice synthy bits like at the tail end of the track.

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hipp-e's track like armand van helden revolves around the that synth groove at 4:20 (no marijuana reference this time) and unlike armand who uses a slower filtering method, hipp-e slips into his inner frenchman and works it nicely. it's also a challenge and quite fun to mix since all the drops give you a good tool to work with other track. but it's also bomb on it own.

buy here (juno) | youtube

embee - shibuya (with reinis zarins quartet)

when 'not tonight' hit the airwaves back in '04 i was hooked, i had heard that embee was releasing a solo album and this album was defiantly not what i expected from this beatsmith. although i hadn't listened to looptroop's "fort europa" album before listening to 'tellings from solitaria' so i didn't know that embee had started taking his beatmaking away from the traditional moody backpacker and hoodie beats.

according to the album booklet this track starts a four track suite that uses some recorded field sounds from the streets of tokyo. with this one he also collaborated with jazz outfit reinis zarin quartet whose presence shines through in the piano, live bass and saxophone sounds. definitely one of the highlights of the album, which is well worth the cop.

buy here (7digital) | youtube

ronnie laws - always there

i think this is ronnie laws' signature track and i didn't know about it until a year ago or so. it was kon & amir that introduced me to it through the willie bobo version by talking about it on their amoeba what's in my bag video.

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i liked the willie bobo version because it was quite disco but had that element of latin jazz-funk and it's the kind of joint that one could work with house music and i've tried (not well mind you but yeah, it's possible to mix this). laws' original is more straight up jazz-funk with a great groove and even the breakdown with laws' going into smooth jazz territories for a 30 seconds or so kind of works.

buy here (7digital) | youtube

of course after finding the original on intarwebs i then found the incognito version which is actually how i first heard the song but it was back in my mind. i hadn't heard incognitos version in ages but my mind was blown for sure in a 'oh snap' moment when i heard that bassline again, because i wasn't always some trainspotting discogs addicted kid that knew about all versions of tunes whatnot.

once in a while i miss those days where i could just be ignorant and not know all this insane stupid amount of musical trivia knowledge. i used to have a lot of problems with that a few years ago when going clubbing and caring too much how the dj was playing but i was broke and i couldn't drink that much (not that i get shitfaced when i go clubbing, i have problems with losing self control in that sense). and i would still be the nerdy kid on the dancefloor dancing to the beat but also thinking "what is this track?"

anyhow. incognito version is nice since jocelyn brown's diva vocals one ups helen lowe's vocal performance on side effect original vocalization of 'always there' and both david morales original remixes from 1991 and masters at work's 1996 remix are immense.

sexfemman - punchrulle

like a lot of other hiphop fans (well atleast here in sweden) i discovered this through ametist's radio show "en kärleksattack på svensk hiphop". ametist was a fan because of it's topic and just of it's simplicity and almost instant likeability. it's basicly a stripped down almost j dilla esque kind of thing with sexfemman talking about well coffee breaks.

he explained on his album special that it was kind of second nature to do a song about coffee and sweets because of how much coffee breaks there is in both his work and in the studio. sexfemman isn't the best rapper in the world to be honest and his delivery and flow is what brought his album down. he is too monotonous in his flow (in a bad way) and he often sounds like the stereotype of someone just talking over a beat. but on this joint, all things clicked perfectly.

a simple joint with a flowing beat, some nice pads and one pitched down vocal sample saying "with my coffee i want a cinnamon bun, chocolate glazed donut or a punsch-roll".

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urban cookie collective - the key, the secret (armand's electro mix)

i generally look for eurodance singles with i check the bargain bins/second hand stores. mostly because i have a general love for the genre but also there was many good remixes hiding in those cd-singles. some that were the original one upped or transformed into something trancy/housey/breakbeaty and so on or something that was meant as the 'underground mix'. meaning it had almost nothing with the original beyond some vocal samples.

i like 'the key, the secret', but when i found the single with armand van helden's remix. i was intrigued and when i finally heard the remix i was fairly pleased. armand does a banging electro workout with a stabby note sequence and some nice bass to go along. the track starts four on the floor but goes into electro about 90seconds in.

buy here  (7digital) | youtube

mo' horizons - hit the road jack (pé na éstrada)

this one i found via a stereo deluxe compilation and it's a brazilian cover of 'hit the road jack'. it's quite funky and straddles the original rhythm and blues but shifts it onto a more drum & bass influenced rhythm but still keeping the sensibility of the traditional versions. the original is a standard and i think my favourite version has been one that i heard some years ago where it was it downplayed to a smoky jazz or blues type thing. i'm racking my brain to remember who performed it but nothing comes up to be honest.

buy here (juno)

for me this song was first introduced in my life via monica zetterlund's version in swedish and it's done in a female perspective and unlike the common ray charles version where the hook is sung from the female perspective and the verses is jack trying to get sympathies.

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i also found this version on spotify and it's by swedish act movits! and they did a rendition where they introduce the song as "this is for everyone that heard 'hit the road jack' and wondered what happened afterward". they do it in a very stripped down fashion and over the original chord progression johan (singer of movits!) explains what caused jack to bolt and get kicked out etc etc.

buy here (7digital)