So this is the first installment of a vinyl-only series; a series that grew (and will continue to grow) simply out of my frustration for not being able to find digital music. I suspect the reason is because most of it is limited edition pressings of mostly bootleg edits, but I havent been able to verify that at this point.
A prime example is this scorching Bowie edit. This is the stuff I am seriously into. They call it anything from slow-house, nu-disco, disco edits and rock edits. The point is that the bpms stay roughly between 102 and 118 and sweet muted or scratchy guitar riffs are looped and layered to create a repetitive, building and then climaxing sonic landscape. Which interestingly is not far off from original 'house' music. A 'slow house' dj recently told me that the average bpm of old school classic house was 112 - 118; which is really amazing because, as he quickly added and as some of us know all to well, if its lower than 124-5 its not (or hardly ever) being played in a Berlin club. I think this generalization can be sadly stretched to fit most club/dance scenes, obviously excluding the hip-hop and R & B 'club/dance' scenes. The point is, I think its time we re-examined our ideas and (likely biologically ingrained) habits surrounding dance tempos, because it seems we can be very comfortable grooving along at say, 104 or 110. Of course there will and should always be a place for high tempo shuffles, but it shouldn't be the appetizer, main course and dessert. Right?! An interesting thesis topic that just came to mind would be to examine the tempo of various ceremonial dances and drums patterns in various native and aboriginal tribes and clans across the world. We could also note the factual, alleged, or even desired subjective experience resulting from or correlating to the tempo and use that as a another variable in our study of modern dance music tempos. Doing this would allow us to get a sense of the historicity of the plus 124/5 bpm standard and possibly (I would say likely) support my argument for the comfort and importance of slower tempo jams.
Anyway, this was supposed to be about hard-to-find vinyl-only releases and it turned into a rant about bpm's. I was actually going to save that rant and formalize it with examples and references in a slow-house post. Oh well. Maybe I will still do it.
Ok back to the Bowie Bootleg - Duff Disco edits Fame.
Duff Disco - Fame (buy)
DUFFDISCO001 - Fame (Preview) by duffdisco
Soul Clap are really awesome sometimes. They have a few vinyls out of housed-up bootlegged samples of classic tracks. I posted one already back in May, but I have two more for you. In their 'Pop Edits' EP they shake up two stellar classic lamentations: Fleetwood Mac's Dreams and Chris Issac's Wicked Games. Not sure if they are technically 'edits', more remixes I'd say, but either way, nice.
Soul Clap - Pop Edits (buy)
Pop Edits by Soul Clap
Here's another Soul Clap Edits EP where they turn the 80's classic 'Conscious of my Conscience' by Womack & Womack into a deep and chuggy detroitesque house groover on the A side. The B side is their reworking of 'Love Light in Flight' by Stevie Wonder. Its descent, but not as good as the A side. And actually The Revenge had recently reworked the same Stevie Wonder song calling it 'Night Flight' from the EP of the same name (more on The Revenge later). Notice how the remixed or edited versions have titles that relate to their original source - a sure sign of proprietary violation. We can even map the boldness of the remixer/editor by the similarities of the two track titles in question, that is, if we had lots of time on our hands and felt so inclined.
Soundcloud says you can buy these tracks on beatport, but actually you cant. Julius Morelius, a soundcloud commenter says "im so glad i bought it on beatport now they retired it and you cant buy it no more in digital". But still its curious, right - are mp3 stores in the habit of retiring mp3's? I will do some investigating and let you know.
Soul Clap Edits - Wolf and Lamb Black Label (buy)
Conscious Edit by Soul Clap
Love Light Edit by Soul Clap
Check out the Womack and Womack original.. Outstanding!!
So I had this next one on my list of hard-to-finds, after spotting it on Phonica but as I was writing this out I checked again and found it. Amazing what time can do for down(free?)loaders - everything is available eventually.
Two big names in the world of disco-related music are Woolfy and DJ Spun.
The A side is Sir Woolfy's pitched-down version of Street Man by Brooklyn Dreams, a 70's disco band. The folks over at Sleazy Beats see eye to eye with me about dropping the tempo and in their review they welcome "the sub 110 tempo of this one, along with the moody vocal and disco strings". They call it "a definite warmup winner".
The B side is DJ Spun's on 'Straight To The Bar' a track that Sleazy Beats feels "hits the bullseye in terms of musical elements: fat-ass bassline, snappy woodblocks, cowbell, delightfully reverbed claps topped off with an especially dreamy organ riff and an irresistible monumental slap-bass discobreak".
Woolfy & DJ Spun: Watchawannado Vol.2 (buy) (download)
A-side: Sir Woolfy - Brooklyn Creams
B-Side: DJ Spun - Straight to the Bar
I have a couple more vinyls to put in this post, but I think that might be enough for both me and you at this moment. So i think vol. 2 will be up soon.
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