Pirkka Hartikainen (pirkka.hartikainen@pp.htv.fi)
Sun, 26 Sep 1999 15:55:18 +0300
Weekender: Spirit In Your Soul EP (Toko 12")
Toko is known as a sure-shot label for cutting-edge British "nu" house. This one is another sophisticated slammer with 3 songs. "Spirit In Your Soul" (A2) is a mellow and polished vocal cut with lot of synth action and nice retro/futuristic touches. Can't figure what the hell they're going on about in the vocals, but it doesn't really matter, as all the things going on in the "background" are enough to keep the listener busy. Also available as a synth-bass-heavy dub mix (A1). On the b-side, there's two nice instrumental jams that keep it funky with lot of things going on, especially "Polite Request" (B1). If you dug Weekender's previous "Lost in the Loft" you should dig this up!
V/A: Summer Sampler '99 (Wave 12")
Francois K's house label strikes with a four-track EP with four deep summertime tracks (for us living in Finland, it seems pretty overdue already, though!!!). Anyway, Joe Claussell's "Juba Beats" is just an excellent house bonus beat for any house DJ, Matty Heilbronn's "Matty's Funk" is a nice bit of groovy house featuring the same "I Wanna Funk" sample that Kevin Yost used in his "KY Funky Stuff" on I Records.
Eternal Sun gets oh-so-spiritual with "Sweet Spirit" which features some fellow delivering some spoken word shit and uplifting chorus connecting you with the Universal Spirit (while Romatt's deep house blueprint pumps nicely in the background). Last tune by FK himself, "Capricorn" is a suprising journey to early 90's ambient cliches ranging from Orb-esque synth patterns to dolphin/seashore sounds to girl speaking to you-name-it. Pretty weird, but still nice - especially as it makes me want to check out all my five year old ambient records: I'm already listening to Orbital's Lush 3-1 first time in three years!!!
Emanon "A-List" / Styles of Beyond "Atomic Zen" split single on R0(ket$h!p
Two militant beats produced by Cheapshot from the West Coast with different artists. "Atomic Zen" with Styles of Beyond features a nasty guitar lick groove but the MC's kinda leave me cold with their wannabe "hard" style - and kinda make me hope I was listening to some of Pharoahe Monch's new Rawkus singles instead!!! On the other side, underground legend Aloe Black (from Emanon) blesses the listener with some nice styles as always, even though this isn't an essential item like all the previous Emanon stuff.
Stephanie Mills: Latin Lover (MAW 12")
Legendary soul-songstress teams up with MAW for another essential item to add to Master's ever-growing back catalogue. Delicious live beats show MAW's incredible production skills - pure class all the way! It's incredible how they have managed to save all these soul vocalists (from Luther Vandross to BeBe Winans to Kenny Lattimore) from the major-label wasteland of no-vision producers, even if it's just for a moment. I'm sure one day people will understand - and even Luther's impossible-to-get "Are You Using Me?" will show up on a BBE compilation or something. Please buy this one. Please.
THANK YOU,
Pirkka
http://listen.to/mixoftheweek
PS. you should check out Spike Lee's new movie "Summer of Sam", as it paints a wonderful picture of NYC in 1978.. and the soundtrack features a whole lot of disco classics and going to clubs. I was blown away by hearing "There But For The Grace Of God", "Running Away", "Best Of My Love", "Let No Man Put Us Under" .. also the movie itself is hella nice!
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