d'amour à volonté

mfcover, originally uploaded by thebeathunters.

MYLENE FARMER
SOUVIENS-TOI DU JOUR
ROYAL G'S CLUB MIX/GONE
SWEET GUITAR MIX/GONE
PEPPERMINT JAM PRODUCTIONS REMIXES
universal, 1999

as a friendly wink to our Tofu Hut friends and their recent infamous mylene farmer post: here's a couple of remixes of a late 20th century MF track.
xcept maybe for her first ambiguous and controversial teenage hit (1: maman a tort 2: c'est beau l'amour 3: l'infirmière pleure 3: je l'aime) and despite her gay-friendly cult/icon status, i hardly shared any vibes or crossed musical paths with ms.farmer.
a few years ago, a friend's girlfriend and aspiring singer offered me this MF 12", as she knew i was into house music and remixes stuff. i probably thanked her with a warm, hum, sneer... and hurried up to bury it deep under the crates. then it somehow surfaced later and i gladly realized the remix treatment was signed by peppermint jam's ROYAL GARDEN SOUND team, which could mean quality stuff. on this 12", both club and downtempo remixes make ms. farmer sounds amazingly good, production enhances its cheesy melody and chorus with minor chords with an edge, the kind to mess with both your head and butt.
actually, i know nothing of ms. farmer's taste or policy for remixing choices. it's probably on the crest of MOUSSE T's hits wave that some cubicle A&R at universal dance pool submitted the track to the peppermint guys (along a phat eurocheck of course). no idea if the sales or clubs feedback made a difference between these babies and regular average eurodance poop (of course there's one of a kind on the 12", too). listen here: there's no way i'll ever get caught dancing my ass off in a club on these tracks but i have to admit i quite like them... now you'll make up your own mind.
NEWS FROM THE EDGE: to the bands who sent messages on a regular basis to offer their sounds to be pushed here eventually: i had little time lately to indulge in this kind of explorations but i will. give or take, it's harder to keep up with the blogworld everyday but i'll try. to all naugahyde fans: your comments and feedback are the backbone of our dedication and enthusiasm to share favorite sounds here, so stay cool and leave a message after the tone.

everybody is trying to get down to the aaaaah

disco, originally uploaded by thebeathunters.

WHIRLPOOL PRODUCTIONS
Ladomat, 1996
in 1996, german house music was hardly regarded as the leading scene it is today.
sure a few labels were already rockin' das beatz, firmly paving the path of the future: K7! in berlin or peppermint jam studios (feat. mousseT and boris dlugosh ( i'll be back to these guys in a future post). it seemed the whole eastern europe club scene was overshadowed by uberdubbers KRUDER & DORFMEISTER and countless related austrian posses. not a bad thing per se of course... then i heard this funnyfunky track on heavy rotation on the couleur 3 radio station: i peed my flared pants down then repolished my mirrorballs.
first i got a hard time finding the 12" and just cherished it for that. later, the track went huge and granted its classic discohouse anthem status. more on the artists and the ladomat label
HERE and HERE

them that's got shall get

a&b, originally uploaded by thebeathunters.

ALEX GOPHER
solid, 2000
long before the intoxicating "french touch" phenomenon, ALEX GOPHER was already famous as mastering wizard at parisian Translab studios since 1985. on top of that, he had legendary formed ORANGE, a versailles pop band starring xavier jamaux, jean-benoît dunckel and nicolas godin, the two dudes who will later mutate into superduo AIR. in many ways, gopher helped moldering the future sound of paris by laying hands on the Translab boards for many french pop singers while elaborating his own style. check his cool biography and original mix of THE CHILD HERE
about billie holiday and her "god bless the child" sample, gopher confessed being quite ignorant of her musical legacy (...) except her rhymes sounded cool. he bought a cheap cd compilation to extract the gem and housed it up to classic status. jérémie mondon a.k.a DEMON was about 20 when he got house virus. his take on gopher's classic has a strong david axelrod flavor, mixing both soothing and devastating dancefloor qualities.

UPDATE: thanks to captain planet from the wonderful CAPTAIN'S CRATE to let us know the above link was still bougie soliterre's... sorry 'bout that ...now' the child is finally fixed

bougie soliterre

bougie, originally uploaded by thebeathunters.

BOUGIE SOLITERRE
from simple things lp
Flipside, 2000
sorry for unplugging the beats during vacation time but actually there's life growing outside the blogosphere and in order to get cherries, apricots, salads, tomatoes, etc. the garden is needing full attention these days!
back on the dancefloor with a soulful/old school jam signed by bettina constanzo a.k.a bougie soliterre (now that's some weird mispelled french pseudo...meaning "lonely candle").
less than very few girls been shakin' the house and most of them are dj's (or djettes) but female talented producers come as rare as a tasty eggplant. betty came from montreal, canada and moved to london where she banged the decks with the early brokenbeat scene and UK house heavyweights BUGZ IN THE ATTIC CREW or PHIL ASHER and top notch u.s house wonderboy KERRI CHANDLER. finally, she created her own imprint FLIPSIDE to promote jazz, house, disco & soul music by kerri, victor davies, blak beatniks, fred everything and herself, of course...
BESIDES YOU is a fave track with a classic 70's soul flavor thanks to the vocals talents of former P-funk vocalist STEF FRANK and a killer bassline. originally only available on 12" and 2lps; it made its way to classic status and CD formatwith remix treatments by uberhot german duo TIEFSCHWARTZ. hear samples of these remixes here and add this nice one to your record collection HERE

too much too soon

faze action, originally uploaded by thebeathunters.

FAZE ACTION
IN THE TREES
nuphonic,1996
SIMON AND ROBIN LEE are the funky brothers behind the FAZE ACTION concept. as bona fide disco music connoisseurs, their sound was an instant blast: lush strings and heavy bass bringin' the dancefloor back to the best undeground disco years, without the cheese or the rollerskates.
it was luminous and sensitive dance music, the epitomy of deep house that you could actually get lost into in da club and listening at home on a rainy sunday. it was the golden era of UK house music at its best and all early NUPHONIC releases were amazing: FREE CHICAGO MOVEMENT, BLAZE, ESG, YELLO SOX, BLACK JAZZ CHRONICLES... for a year or two, you just had to grab the new nuphonic release to stay on the edge of the best music world/clubwise, as featured on their first comp NUPHONIC VOL.1
but from1999 on, the whole thing grew out of proportion: the label parted from the 12"s only politics and added a lot of artist's full-length albums to the release list: FAZE ACTION's 2nd opus, BLACK JAZZ CHRONICLES, SOUL ASCENDANTS, BLOCK 16, FUG, ADAM GOLDSTONE, and prestigious compilations like David Mancuso's THE LOFT vol.1 &2, NORMAN JAY's GOOD TIMES vol1&2 and XPRESS2, LAST NIGHT A DJ SAVED MY LIFE, etc... almost all of these were beautifully designed/packaged albums classics but very costly projects, too. the tough turning point of the new century hit hard both the UK house music/club scene and its derivated record industry and nuphonic got flushed away as a leading label. thank god the music still remains and all dicography is available on cd thru amazon or your favorite record dealer.