lets not save the best for last & get right to it!!! this playlist ends with "The Step And The Walk" by THE DUKE SPIRIT. here's the video:
ok, back to the beginning...
RINALDO DONATI smoothly kicks off this mix. since i put it together last week, in light of Friday the 13th i thought the theme music to Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" would be fitting. just in case it wigs you out a bit, relax! the voice of LYKKE LI will soothe you right afterwards. you can listen to a more upbeat version of the same Kleerup song on my previous mix... the whole first chapter if you will of this playlist is rather mellow. i really like ELBOW's cover of "Back to Black." if you missed it last month, i had posted a few of their original songs on this mix. the smoke filled lounge vibe carries on with France's MAKALI & Brazil's CÉU, sandwiching THE PHENOMENAL HANDCLAP BAND from Brooklyn. "Baby" is a fun uplifting song which makes me think of all the wonderful ladies who've blessed my life & taught me so much. later in the mix you'll get to another livelier one of their songs, "15 to 20."
by now it's time to throw in a few tunes you can not only swoon to but dance to. Lisa Stansfield & The Orb can't make it any clearer with 1992's "Time To Make You Mine." CALM & the great ESAU MWAMWAYA provide ideal beach tunes. on the other hand Washington DC's LE LOUP is dreamy, bleepy & sorta creepy. i got the title of this playlist from RAT SALAD's "Canibalized" & keep it rocking with songs from THE PINKER TONES, ARMY NAVY, Queen cuz we are the champions till the end, HAIL SOCIAL remixed by CRIMP YR HAIR, CHIN CHIN remixed by ELI ESCOBAR and PILOOSKI who skillfully reedits The Pointer Sisters! for more of his originals & remixes, revisit the following mixes here & here & here.
the dance party gets serious with a perfect blend of piano house & Detroit techno from SURKIN that reminds me of the garage parties i used to go to in the late 80s back in Brussels, at the height of Technotronic & Inner City's "Good Life" not to mention the locally produced & infinitely repetitive music we used to call back then acid house & boccaccio (after the famous Belgian club that only shut down once there were too many car crashes caused by patrons driving home too high). Paris had a club scene with an attitude; London i can't remember; Germany had techno; Belgium had the Boccaccio with everyone & their mothers coming from across our borders to party, dance without an attitude & enjoy pure synthetic drugs. this was another era, when Ibiza was a sunny rustic destination away from the grey Belgian skies. back then the Mediterranean island only had dirt roads & many unspoiled beaches! it wasn't the massive cheese fest it has become (think Cancun or even worse, Daytona Beach)... oh well!
MAJIK JOHNSON's remix of the KAROSHI BROS (who tell you that Madonna is not hot & ask you to love the world) & DON RIMINI's remix of Young MC's "Bust A Move" (click here for another remix of the same track), TOM NEVILLE's remix of OCELOT & IN FLAGRANTI bring me back to what it used to be like at raves in the early 90s at the infamous & ecstacy infused Club at Firestone (a huge Firestone garage converted into a club) in desolate downtown Orlando, Florida, while i spent a summer waiting tables at the French pavillion of Epcot Center with a fun group of other debaucherous Euros who trafficked all sorts of treats between Amsterdam, Paris, Mexico & Florida; pure insanity... that's where i had my Sasha & John Digweed phase as they would throw frequent parties at the Firestone where they'd distribute freely pure MDMA from Amsterdam, London & Geneva... we'd come down, rent kayaks & get lost among the scary gators while tripping on mushrooms. somehow it made sense back then... i lost my mind & before the summer ended i went to Miami & stayed with an old friend from Caracas & 2 hot South Africans also crashing at her pad... which really wasn't so much "mellower" than Orlando! anyhew, if you dig In Flagranti here, "Coquine" still is one of my favorites; it's #19 in this January playlist that also has Don Rimini's "Absolutely Rad.".
things take a more new wave turn with ANORAAK remixed by GRUM & with a LIFELIKE remix, get a little gothic with Berlin's BLACK AFFAIR, then organically shift towards the emotronics of DISCODEINE who are the duo formed by PILOOSKI & fellow Frenchie PENTILE. "Joystick" is a true dancefloor jam!!! at this point why not add the full on melodrama of PAS/CAL before mellowing out again with Sweden's AIR FRANCE... if you enjoyed that Lifelike remix, check out this one, this other one for The Presets posted on this playlist, and this one for Cazals posted on this other playlist.
Ozzies DAMAGE ON THE BACKSEAT do a sweet remix of FEIST whose voice i never get tired of. i can't get enough of HERCULES & LOVE AFFAIR either; they truly "Raise Me Up." for "Blind" go here & for their remix of Yazoo go here... Colombians QUANTIC do a chill remix of PAINE. finally, i couldn't resist adding some old school Chris Rea, Bootsie Collins, Lord Isis & another disco classic titled "Mucho Macho." the album cover of this disco jem is totally appropriately gay:
