Little Scotty - Shout at the Disco (Chewy Rub)
This tune has been burning up my car stereo, head phones, computer speakers and you name it the last couple months. I’m not sure exactly what it is. It could be the raw, rubbery swamp groove this song brings. It could be Little Scotty’s constantly insisting that we need to put on our prettiest dresses and clothes and shout and party at the disco. It could be the inordinate amount of time I spent South of the Mason-Dixon line over the last 2 months. Either way, Chewy really knocked it out of the park with this disco edit, but he(?) has way more up his sleeves than this jam, so check out his Soundcloud for the DL for this and many others.
/// Brian Blackout
Elton John - Victim Of Love (Super Fuzz 3000 Edit)
Been a bit busy of late, and I know I most recently resurfaced to post a Super Fuzz 3000 edit, but when this one popped onto my radar I couldn’t resist talking about it. I’m definitely a fan of Elton John, and something of a superfan of the works of Giorgio Moroder. What if I told you that Moroder’s right hand man Pete Bellotte had done an album in 1979 with Elton John? What if I mentioned that Michael McDonald had kicked in some backing vocals? Sounds great right? No.
The truth is that Elton’s Victim of Love is a mess, cheesy in a bad way, mostly sounding like Elton covering a bunch of songs Donna Summer rejected. However, its title track is definitely a highlight, a fact that did not escape Super Fuzz 3000. He(?) manages to carve most of the fat off of the original, and the result is a surprisingly lean cosmic disco journey, punctuated with the odd bit of Elton singing. It’s great for some late night excursions. You can grab it for free off of Super Fuzz 3000’s Soundcloud.
/// Brian Blackout
“Mersey Mersey Me” - L’Étranger
Ben Thomas, the UK-based producer and DJ who records under the nom-de-tune L’Étranger, just posted this track from his forthcoming 1997 EP on his Soundcloud page. “Mersey Mersey Me” may have little in common with the Marvin Gaye tune it namechecks in its title, though it does possess a bit of the same mellow melancholia. Instead, it’s a small homage to the river running famously through Thomas’ hometown of Liverpool and, much like the river itself, has a calm, serene flow to it, with murky electronics adding to the vibe, along with the occasional keyboard swirl or guitar sample bubbling up before submerging again.
L’Étranger’s 1997 EP will be released on March 12 via La Bombe. Stay in the loop via his Facebook page.
- Spoolwork
The Cure – “Hot Hot Hot (Leon DeeJay Electrostatic Induction Mix)”
An old Cure fave amped up for maximum bounce on the dance floor? Works for me. A charitable DJ donating this remix for free to any pair of ears that cares to listen? Even better. Greek DJ/producer Leonidas Deejay posted this track to his Soundcloud almost a year ago, but just recently decided to share it with the world via that magic download button. It’s got all the funky-pale-goth-boy charm of the original, just bigger, faster and more energized. Head over to his page and grab it while you can…offers like this don’t stick around for long.
- Spoolwork
Madonna - Think of Me (Super Fuzz 3000 edit)
If you delve into Madonna’s eponymous debut (going way back to ‘83) there’s a handful of surprisingly good boogie-sounding tracks that you’d never guess were sung by the Material Girl. Mr. Super Fuzz 3000 (at least, we assume he’s a he, or maybe a they, I’m stereotyping disco nerds here a bit) has taken a nice shine to one such track, Think of Me. The edit rides on the substantial grooves of Maz’s original (indeed she’s even credited with writing this one) and the results are way hotter than they have any right to be. Grab the free download on Super Fuzz 3000’s Soundcloud page along with many other excellent edits.
/// Brian Blackout
Escort – “Makeover (JKriv Remix)
JKriv, the man behind nu-disco label Deep & Disco and a DJ/producer in his own right, got a chance to remix YDH2S faves Escort for their recent Remixed compilation, and he turned the Brooklyn disco orchestra’s sound into a summery, retro-vibe of a house track. JKriv casts a warm glow on what was originally a chilly piece of electro-disco, adding vintage drum machines and prime 1990s house piano plinks, upping our nostalgia for summers long gone as we hunker down here for a winter spell.
This track, along with the rest of the Escort Remixed collection, is available here on iTunes.
- Spoolwork
Legowelt – “And The Beat Goes On”
Dutch producer Danny Wolfers, aka Legowelt, just uploaded this track to his Soundcloud, a curious but charming interpretation of The Whsipers’ 1980 boogie hit “And the Beat Goes On.” Incorporating the glorious muted tonality of budget synths captured on normal-bias cassette tape, it preserves the basic structure of the song, minus of the vocals (aside from Legowelt’s timid recitation of “and the beat goes on” peeking out occasionally from under his thick blanket of sound. Call it chillwave, call it abstract funk, I definitely call it compelling, coming from a man who proclaims on his very-retro website that he’s been “running deep in a silent corner of the internet since 1998.”
You can grab this track for free from Legowelt’s Soundcloud page.
- Spoolwork
I wrote this a few weeks back, but then Escort decided to hold off on promoting the remixes until the single officially dropped. So now I’m reposting. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…
-Dope Werewolf
Escort - Camèleon Chameleon (Black Russian Remix)
Escort’s Camèleon Chameleon had a lot of good stuff going on before The Black Russian Party got their hands on it. The track was a nice pop-disco romp with jaunty horns and catchy sprinklings of keyboards. Fun and danceable but maybe a bit on the tame side. The Black Russian Party, Rok One and Mike Dextro, held onto what worked in the original mix, and upgraded the bass to a springy electro bounce. They open with some drums from the Yazoo school and then send the percussion ricocheting off the walls with dubby delay. Cranking the tempo from 112 up to about 120 and finishing with some latin percussion gives the remix sort of a Tom Tom Club meets Jimmy Castor Bunch alt-disco feel. This is only the second remix from this crew, following an awesome reworking of Washed Up by the Glass, but something tells me they’ve just begun. Make way for the Siberian Soundsystem.
-Dope Werewolf
Fashions - I-95 (w/Sarah Rudy)
The second Fashions single dropped late last week and it’s another doozy. Shooting less for the dancefloor and more for an icy, happy-go-lucky midtempo synthpop song, I-95 is catchy as all get-out and will make you want to hop into a car and crank it on the stereo. True to their John Hughes-inflected influences, the band recruited saxophonist Glenn White for a deliciously cheesy sax solo. Head over to their Soundcloud or Bandcamp pages, the song is a free download and you’ll be humming it all day.
/// Brian Blackout
