Artist: Shazz
Title: "El Camino Pt. 2"
Label: Yellow Productions
Cat No: YP 029
A new Yellow release is always welcome in my
collection. This one features Shazz from the F
Communications stable with a beautiful, piano-driven
house instrumental. The A-side features the 7 and 1/2
minute original mix, while the B-side features two
shorter versions. The "Organ Dub" replaces the piano
from the original mix with (surprise!) organ, in a
stripped-down rendition, while the "DJ Gregory Moody
Dub RMX" reprocesses the original piano track and adds
some sharp punctuation with cymbols. All three
versions are quite enjoyable in their own way. I've
never seen a "Pt. 1" to this but I'd love to know more
about it.
Artist: Over Street
Title: "Jazz Cigarette"
Label: Tronicsole
Cat No: TSOLE 013
This is one of my favorite releases so far this year!
"Jazz Cigarette" begins with a long spoken intro from
"Leonard" (Feather, perhaps?) about jazz and why he
loves it so much, recited over a jazzy rhythm. As the
commentary proceeds, a throbbing house beat introduces
itself, and when the commentary ends, the jazz begins:
flute, trumpet, sax, keyboards, guitar and bass trade
off solos over the house beat. As the track winds down
we hear a few closing remarks from Leonard on "jazz in
the present tense," which this record very definitely
is. The flip side ("Overture") is a more relaxed
affair, with an emphasis on saxophone and keyboards.
Both sides are highly enjoyable, but I'll bet it's the
A-side that will start showing up on compilations
before year's end.
Artist: Disco D
Title: "I Want the World to Know"
Label: Poumtchak
Cat No: PT 04
This is our old friend Dimitri ("He's from Paris!") in
full-on disco mode, with two long mixes of the title
track. The A-side is the original mix and the B-side
is a Mooloodjee edit. I actually like the B-side
better, because about half-way through it gets stuck in
what sounds like a locked groove, with the vocal
snippet "...to know...to know..." from the title
repeating over and over. Then, after the tension is
built to almost the breaking point, the song kicks back
in as before. Several bars later, there's another cute
bit where the song starts to fade out, then immediately
comes back at full volume. This will cause mayhem on
the dancefloor!
Artist: Cyclops 4000
Title: Macro Scope
Label: Ultimate Dilemma
Cat No: UDR 013
You'd probably need a Ph.D. to understand what Sir
Menelik's rapping about on this one. Between choruses
of "expand your mind...the macro scope," we're treated
to a barrage of concepts like thermodynamics and
polynomials and biokinetics and...well, you get the
picture. The music (and scratching by Roc Raider) is
energetic and industrial, with squelchy synths and
sound effects percolating throughout. The B-side
remixes (by Runaways and Voyager) are jazzier and
dubbier, featuring some particularly cavernous bass.
The sleeve advertises a forthcoming album, which should
be worth investigating.
-- Mark Turner mturner@netcom.com