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January 2000


PETALPUSHER
Surrender
(Naked Music Recordings 12")
In UK, house music producers are exploring the colonial heritage from Africa, adding a great deal of hip hop and easy listening in the production. French house music, builds on a huge groovy bass, jazz and a certain amount of Arabic influences in the groove.

Soul music has been a significant part of dance music since the days of Motown and I would say that it is in the US produced house music that the influences from soul music is most frequently occurring. Check out Blaze´s My Beat, Ten City´s Nothing´s Changed, Jepthe Guillaume´s The Prayer or anything by the genius Moodymann to see what I mean.

I would go as far as claiming that the future of soul music is partly to be discovered in the house music from United States, especially in the liminal stages where club music with vocals and good songs merges into music that is enjoyable outside the dance floor. Of course, this is not the whole truth. My argument is that house music in general has a close affiliation with both disco and soul music, but the impact of disco can sometimes be so strong, that it easy to forget the dance music that were made in the seventies before Staying Alive surfaced. In the clubs, the DJ´s were cutting tracks with a groove that people could dance to. Virtually anything would go in the mix; James Brown, Latin, Afro, Funk and Fusion as long as the groove made people dance, Then came Studio 54, and disco music was soon a huge genre in its own merits and codes, the rest is as they say, history.

It seems like some of the contemporary house producers are looking beyond the days of disco and they are making music like it was made before the heyday of disco. Like; take a good song, add a huge b-line and the groove will be contagious. The production team, Miguel Migs and Dave Bonshoff, behind Petalpushhers´ new release has taken this notion to its fulfillment on the four remixes of Surrender.

The Petalpusher Original Mix opens the set and it is slightly Barry White:ish in style. A rolling b-line carries the song and fast guitarlicks syncopates the uptempo beats. The Attaboy Remix is slowed down to midtempo with a groovy deep bass. A killer jam.


SUZUKI EP
Orozco/Suzuki/Boss on the Boat/Annanas
(G-Stone Recordings 12")
Yesterday I was strolling by the water. The sea was beginning to freeze and within a few days it will be covered by ice. I stopped for a while and looked out over the shore, it was quiet, I could barely pick up the sounds from the distant cars. The city a couple of kilometers back seemed deserted, or as if it even did not exist. I stood there by the sea and suddenly I became aware of a soft and rhythmic clicking sound. It seemed to be everywhere and at first I could not locate its source. It took a couple of seconds before I realised that it was the waves that moved the ice flakes and that it was the movement of the ice flakes that created the sound. It was very relaxing and soothing, after a while the sound was like music, frozen music.

The music by Richard Dorfmeister and Rupert Huber on the EP Tosca is very close to the frozen music I heard on the shore. It is relaxing and beautiful, and it clicks like ice cubes in water.

Orozco begins with heavy temple blocks echoing slowly, then syn bass and strings. The string arrangement is vaguely Oriental in style, like the usual European cliche of Oriental music, three bars in major and the forth bar in minor. It sounds nice and the style is acceptable. Undistorted jazz guitar and more deep echo makes this a gem of peacefulness. The title cut Suzuki is like breathless, unreleased passion - restricted desire. Dubby bass and hovering vocals. Beautiful piece of music.


MELKY SEDECK
Sister and Brother
(MCA Records)
In this case it is sister and brother of The Fugees´ Wyclef Jean. The underrated debut album by Melky Sedeck has the raw power of old school soul music. Get this album for three tracks: Shake It with stinging guitars and heavy groove, is delicious. Raw Phase II Attraction is a true floorfiller, the girls love it! And last but not least the teasing High Heel Shoes for all the boys that have to go home alone in the night. Wicked.


N´DAMBI
Little Lost Girls Blues
(Cheeky-I Productions)
Former vocalist with Erykah Badu leads the way to quality soul music. Stripped deep, dark funk grooves. N'Dambi has the kind of smoky voice suited for late-night jazz bars, and appropriately, her surprisingly stunning debut album is filled with more jazz-inspired numbers than the kind of new soul that many young singers have been striving for lately.

Little Lost Girls Blues is a promising debut with songs to make our hearts bleed. Truly Phenomenal.

Don´t sleep! Buy this record while you still can. Mind you, it is on a small independent label and might be sold out in no time.

2000

    BRIDGE     LAMBCHOP     CALEXICO     DAVID HOLMES


    MARLENA SHAW     ISOLÉE     MAE BAD BOY


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