Articles tagged with nu disco

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

“Heaven of My Life” (Tony Johns & Dynamicron edit) – Change

It’s my almost my anniversary with my boo so I’m a little more predisposed to songs about apples of one’s eye, angels of one’s heart, loves that one needs and, most importantly, heavens of one’s life. I’ve previously espoused of my love of Tony Johns‘ disco edits, a couple months ago I posted an edit he did of Cybotron’s Clear that was particularly awesome. Recently he teamed up with Spain’s purveyor of killer rock edits, Dynamicron, for this tasty tasty edit of Change’s italo boogie joyride “Heaven of My Life.” I’ve heard quite a few Change edits in my day but never this particular selection. In its original form the track is a great late night driving music that you can kinda boogie to, but the duo has added a goldilocks amount of oomph, bringing it up to the caliber of a lovely floor filler. Go find many more goodies on Tony Johns‘ and Dynamicron‘s respective pages on Soundcloud, they believe in free love or at least plenty of free downloads, so god bless ’em.

/// Brian Blackout

This week marks the release of “The Returning,” a new single by Lithuanian DJ/production duo Downtown Party Network. The original, a blissful piece of Balearic pop, features the breezy voice of British singer James Yuill, and in this rework by Time & Space Machine (aka Richard Norris of Beyond the Wizard’s Sleeve), the vibe gets some added heft from a discoball drumbreak underneath. Paired with the expansive layers of delay on Mr. Yuill’s recitation “I want to feel your love,” it’s a compelling track, still blissful, but with a little extra bounce.

Downtown Party Network’s “The Returning” single will be available, along with this remix, via Juno on September 28^th.

– Spoolwork

Missy Elliott and Timbaland are back at it, collaborating on a pair of singles that landed in the iTunes store yesterday. Being a big fan of their past work, which still sounds fresh to these ears (like this, or that, or this, or that), I felt some joy drain out of my headphones when I cued up the two new songs, “Triple Threat” and “9^th Inning” and was pretty underwhelmed. Fortunately, UK production duo and self-described “boogie boat” PBR Streetgang swept in on the same day with their rework of Missy & Timbo’s “Lick Shots,” echoing the elements that made all those earlier tracks so great- catchy, inventive, a little weird and, most of all, fun.

– Spoolwork

As the last days of summer roll in, Todd Terje rolls out this flawless nu-disco remix.  Perfect for cocktail sipping 75 degree days away, the vibe is chill enough that you may want to bring a sweater.  Clean production, a bouncing baseline and snapping snare drums epitomize the less-is-more approach.  It’s lush, but in a sophisticated way.  Nothing extra, nothing out of place and the effect is hypnotic.  You’ll forget it’s Hot Chip until the breakdown.  Then the vocal drops and it’s time to set your cocktail down and dance.  Get into it.

-Dope Werewolf

This nu disco jam floored me from the minute I heard it. Mexico’s Bufi has gotten some love from us here before and his Little Dragon remix is a fave too, but he has completely outdone himself with his remix of his countryman André VII. 2012 in some ways has been the year of the bleeps and the bloops, and Bufi slathers the track in fun warbly synth sounds, yelps, and sultry gasps about Discoteca.

The single comes out next week so you’ll have to wait a week to pick up a copy, and when you do make sure and grab Bottin’s similarly excellent Italo-style treatment of the same.

/// Brian Blackout

Ah, it’s a dreary post-summer Tuesday here in Brooklyn and what better way to enjoy the grey-day vibe than listen to Stevie Nicks and her gorgeous, smokey exhalations…”Thunder only happens when it’s raining”…indeed. This brand new remix by British production & DJ duo Psychemagik is their second rework of a Fleetwood Mac classic- check out their take on the Christine McVie fronted “Everywhere”– and it’s just as compelling. Psychemagik let the intro stretch out and linger for over three minutes, indulging us in a perfect pairing of the original song’s airy guitar work with some updated bass and drum punch, til Stevie’s voice breezes in and takes into the tune we all know and love so well.

This track is available as a free download through Psychemagik’s Facebook page. Just give ‘em a like and you’ll be golden.

– Spoolwork

Australian-by-way-of-Sweden twin sisters Saint Lou Lou released their dreamy little single “Maybe You” on Kitsuné yesterday, a track rich with cloudy synthesizers, foggy low-end pulse and ethereal harmonies, perfect for late night drives and subway rides, or anytime you feel like sinking back into your own personal headspace. But if your mood is leaning more towards the dance floor, this excellent remix by French producers Le Crayon and Oxford should do the trick. They trade in the laid-back haze for a chunky nu-disco groove, upping the energy several notches and spinning the track into a near about-face from the original. A completely different vibe, but still just as good.

Saint Lou Lou’s “Maybe You” is available for download in the Kitsuné webshop, along with this Le Crayon & Oxford remix.

– Spoolwork

Crazy P – “Stop Space Return (Hot Toddy Remix)”

With the musical floodgates open wide these days (thanks to blogs and clouds and everything else) it’s easy for some great tunes to get lost in the deluge. Case in point for me is this track by Crazy P– I’d grabbed it from some dusty corner of the internet a few years back, but it wasn’t til it popped up on my shuffle a few months ago that I realized just how fantastic it is. The original, a delicious piece of bubbling electro in its own right, is the title track from their 2008 album (and the first not issued under the band’s old moniker, Crazy Penis (good choice to drop the ‘enis, eh?)). Band member Chris Todd, aka Hot Toddy, gives the song a disco makeover, adding scratch ‘n’ vamp guitars and a laidback bass under singer Danielle Moore’s slinky vocal, upping the sex appeal even more. I’ve been dropping it in DJ sets ever since my re-discovery and it never fails to turn some heads, bobbing and bouncing along, and making me wonder- what else do I need to re-dig out of my overstuffed digital crates?

– Spoolwork

Baby Come on (the Noodleman rework) – Sex o’Clock USA

The Noodleman has been churning out chugging, dubby takes on disco for some time now, and as a new 12” of his re-edits gets unleashed to vinyl, I thought it a good time to introduce y’all to my favorite edit of his, and one of my favorite tricks to get a dancefloor good and hot. It’s a slippery, dubby take on Mort Shuman’s “Baby Come on,” from the French “documentary” Sex o’Clock USA. Strings careen seductively, the drums pulse a slow yet pounding swagger, all while singers implore you to “…give it your lovin’ daddy.” Daddy likes.

And that’s just a taste, after you grab the download from his Soundcloud, rush to pick up Mr. Noodleman’s new 12” EP, Dub Sauce, and you’ll find the same smoking hot grooves, perfect for Summer listening. Lots of early buzz about groover “Sloppy Angel,” but I’m partial to his take on PM Dawn’s “I’d Die Without You,” straight off the Boomerang soundtrack, complete with an Enya-riffic breakdown and chock full of that early 90’s piano noodling you’ll know and love.

/// Brian Blackout

Beach House – “10 Mile Stereo (Zopelar Remix)”

The heartbeat’s definitely throbbing a little harder and faster in this Zopelar remix of an otherwise laidback Beach House tune. The original, from the band’s third disc Teen Dream, is a gorgeous, midnight-ocean wash of soft synth sustain and arpeggiated glimmer, but here the Brazilian DJ adds a hefty kickdrum pulse and, most importantly, that bobbing disco bass, to push Victoria Legrand’s sweetly langorous voice out of the moonlit tide and onto solid ground. Sometimes you’re in the mood to feel something sturdy beneath your feet, and Zopelar grounds us perfectly, anchoring the expanse of Beach House to a tightly-coiled groove.

You can download this track for free from Zopelar’s Soundcloud page.

– Spoolwork

Dutch producers Kraak & Smaak first blipped on my DJ radar last year when they dropped a boogie-funk edit of their single “Dynamite” (intoning the synth & rubber groove of the genre’s forefathers, Zapp & Roger), which was perfect for taking parties from that early-first-or-second-drink vibe to the let’s-turn-this-place-into-a-sweatbox-frenzy peak-hour set. Now they’re back with a new track, “Built for Love,” featuring Romanthony on the mic (the voice on Daft Punk’s “One More Time”), which has a nice, nighttime, cool-breeze sound to it, but I’m putting my cash on this Psychemagik remix. The UK duo forfeits the open-air approach of the original for a production packed tight with sound, heavy with a 4/4 disco-house pulse. I bet it can take an open-air dance floor and pack it tight with bodies, too.

Psychemagik’s remix of “Built For Love,” as well as the original single and remixes by Roach Motel, are available as an EP on Beatport.

– Spoolwork

Kashif may not be a household name, but to boogie and 80s R&B heads he’s enshrined in the hallowed halls. He’s perhaps best known for his work on Whitney Houston’s “Thinking About You,” Evelyn Champagne King’s “I’m in Love,” and “Love Come Down,” and a handful of his own tracks and his work with Howard Johnson (no, not that Howard Johnson). Lately, reworking and sampling Kashif’s work has become very popular, producing a minor hit for Janet Jackson in ‘04, a ubiquitously amazing dancefloor filler by Mark E., and countless excellent selections by the likes of Moon Boots, Bicep and Rayko.

Kashif’s minimal synth bass work is well suited for modern nu disco, getting looped endlessly in a style similar to slowed down French house, or its Chicago forbears. Finland’s Curtis Vodka follows this principle closely in his re-edit of Howard Johnson’s “So Fine.” Slippery bass grooves chug back and forth as they filter slowly into existence, bringing rise to some choppy guitar and eventually Johnson’s smooth vox. Grab the DL from Curtis Vodka’s soundcloud, this track will serve you well to start up a dancefloor, or soundtrack your cruising into the sunset on your town’s strip.

/// Brian Blackout

Orlando’s Sleazy McQueen is one of my favorite edit heads operating on Soundcloud. This week he took on a classic, Idris Muhammad’s sublime “Could Heaven Ever Be Like This,” and the results are quite lovely.

The original is one of those songs that’s perfect for the world of disco edits and re-imagining, clocking in at nearly 9 minutes with heaps of beautiful but un-danceable portions framed by moments of pure bliss. Sleazy isn’t the first to tackle the song, Leftside Wobble produced a meatier edit recently and Stars on 33 re-envisioned the song as a French house anthem a few years back.

Sleazy McQueen succeeds to me because he lets the original work its own magic without artificially peaking or pinching the track too much. His main contribution is a little extra disco stomp, with a few subtle effects thrown in for good measure. This one isn’t a free download, but he’s got more disco edits than you can shake a stick at on his Soundcloud and almost all have a DL.

// Brian Blackout

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Gigamesh was bound to end up in these pages sooner or later. He’s been making the A-grade in my digital crates pretty consistently these past few years, adding a glitter synth spit shine to the well-worn grooves the overused (à la Deee-Lite and the King of Pop) and pumping up the beats (and the kicks, for that matter) of great tunes that just needed a little extra bump in the trunk to keep a peak-hour crowd on its feet. His latest offering is a remix of James Curd’s new single, “Guide Me,” and after just a few bars Gigamesh puts us all at ease- no need to anchor himself to a classic to get our ears pricked up and the neurons humming. The man can take a track we’ve never heard before and spin it into the song we’ve been waiting to hear all night.

You can grab a free copy of this track from RCRD LBL.

– Spoolwork

As the weather gets increasingly springy, I dig deep into my Winter music finds and try to find those tracks that had too much of a warm weather feel to be played when I got ‘em. It’s like Spring cleaning. This track is exactly the reason why I go to all this trouble.

Slow It Down, straight outta Glasgow, released this jam to the world last Fall, but as all of our little green pals start unfurling and popping out of the ground, it’s only now that this cut feels right. Similar to Tiger & Woods, Slow It Down specialize in loopy, proto-house edits of 80s R&B and boogie tracks.

Coming at us from the era when Michael, Whitney, and the Jets ruled the airwaves, and possessing that same happy glow that Janet Jackson’s “Escapade” has, Narada Michael Walden’s “Divine Emotions” melds that irrepressible feel good vibe to a throwback boogie bassline. Slow It Down works the grooves of the extended cut for a while before letting a few happy chords to work their way in and finally lets loose with the song’s chorus about midway in. Grab the free download, follow Slow It Down on Soundcloud and pick up the original, within minutes, everyone you know will be telling you to wipe that stupid grin off your face.

/// Brian Blackout

Ever since some Bronx parking lot DJ plugged his decks into a lamppost and crossfaded “Trans Europe Express” into James Brown, electronic music’s been looking past its stiff, synthetic backbone to find its inner rubber-limbed soul. Add one more notch to this legacy with Shit Hot Soundsystem’s remix of Daft Punk. The Sussex-based DJ spreads his syncopated cowbell and agogo rolls all over the French droids’ beat, making it looser than ever. Layer in that monotonic babble from the lipless robot baby and you can feel the friction build- a rigid, animatronic vocal rubbing up against all that loose-jointed percussion, setting off sparks, til a blast furnace bassline lashes out just under the two minute mark and the whole damn thing catches fire.

– Spoolwork

New York is a big place, and just when you’ve got a handle on what’s happening, something creeps out of nowhere to surprise you. Such is the case with Morgan Z, aka Chrome Canyon. Chrome Canyon is merely a new guise for Z, who formerly played keyboards for glam rockers Apes and Androids. Stylistically his new work is nothing like his past, tackling disco and electro sounds more as tools to create pop music than blueprints to be followed.

On his new EP, Body Music, disco fuels his pop, and not the other way around. The results sound as scintillating during home listening as they would on a crowded dancefloor. The standout for me is the track above, Melee Beats‘ take on the a-side, “Computers of Love.” He works vocoder snippets from the original into a frothy mix of disco loops, with a light touch on the filters.

Body Music is out now on iTunes, so pick up some tracks. While you’re at it grab some of Chrome Canyon’s remixes off his soundcloud for your local listening pleasures.  A 6-pack of remixes yields mostly softer synthpop reworkings of indie standards. Standouts include Chrome Canyon’s take on Erika Spring’s recent “6 More Weeks” and a nice reimagining of Phoenix’s “Fences,” with enough oomph to get people out of their seats and onto the floor.

/// Brian Blackout