ng3 - tell me (club mix)

another example of a track that i liked from hearing it on radio or on telly back in '02 and i know it was because of three reasons. first of all because the video was quite good, even though the idea was sort reminiscent of a sugababes video and especially the video for puretone's "addicted to bass". secondly because of herbie crichlow was affiliated with the song and also produced the song (along with partner in crime ari lehtonen who used the moniker eric le tennen on this project).

thirdly and most imporantly is that it was quite a catchy track and had alot of attitude with but it went without saying as the combination crichlow & lehtinen was quite the hitmakers, on the more commercial eurodance-leaning edge. they formed a production group called dreamstate and ng3 was part of their stable. sound wise ng3 was somewhat based in hiphop and r&b but with beats that sounded more like eurodance and trance at 95bpm. strangely though it doesn't actually sound like the late '00 style of hiphop and r&b with that exact formula as this was too polished.

for example the original actually uses the kind of soca or dancehall type swing and tempo but there is a more specific hiphop-oriented remix done as dreamstate. here it's at half the tempo, most of the elements have been stripped down and it's just drums, bass, vocals and then a big epic synthy hook. even at this rendition it doesn't really sound like those records from the later era but i never cared for those tracks and neither this remix either.

i was always geared towards the two house remixes on the cdsingle and german act silverboys and swedish producer jonas hagman. the former does a great filtertastic funky house mix but i had problems with this version because i think they handled the vocal poorly and it can't even be salvaged with editing. hagman's versions are just billed as club mix and dub mix respectively and i think i still don't know why, just going by the sound of the remixes.

they have little to no relation musically beyond the use of the vocals but i loved them on the first listen. hagman's remixes is driven by this catchy tom-loop and a very fake acidline that does everything right. it creates a whole load of tension and never really releases it a typical circuit type way because this remix is very in tuned with the american circuit sound of the 90's. difference being that it doesn't go to the epic extent that you got in those anthemic tracks and remixes. i do love this version but when i had the problems of fitting this into the sets i was playing so it became a personal pleasure. utterly banging though.