Digging in the vaults for a trio of François Kevorkian remixes, all available on compilations and EPs via Bandcamp for a steal, in my opinion.
As with Les Disques Du Crépuscule yesterday, Harmless Records have made a ton of their top notch compilations available digitally for seven quid, including the excellent Disco Discharge series. Originally issued as 2CD sets between 2009 and 2012, there are 18 themed collections to choose from.
My pick, fronted by a live performance from 1983, is François Kevorkian's 12" mix of Keep On by D-Train, which appears on the Disco Boogie collection, along with Average White Band, Sharon Redd, Skyy and Nick Straker Band. Great stuff.
Originally issued in France only as a single in 1993, Tout Est Bleu by Âme Strong got a wider release in 1997 with remixes by Attaboy, 16B (Omid Nourizadeh) and François Kevorkian. You can also find the latter on the Airtight In Session: Volume 1 compilation from 2009.
In 2003, Zapology aka Delroy Clarke lent his vocals to Midnight Bustling by 3 Generations Walking, furnished with an epic remix by François Kevorkian. In 2009, New York-based Lion1 Records released the 12-track Believe EP/remix album, containing reworks of the title track, Her Song and four mixes of Midnight Bustling, including vocal and dub rinses by Monsieur K.
I'm not overly familiar with Kevorkian's output and remixes....but I feel really old thinking that it's now over 40 years since I first ever heard his name when he did the remix of 'This Charming Man', much to my delight but the horror of quite a few of the early Smiths diehards of my acquaintance.
ReplyDeleteI bought a lot of 12" singles starting in the mid-80s, and François Kevorkian's was all over them, from Depeche Mode to U2, The Cult to Kraftwerk, Pet Shop Boys to The The. I liked the New York mixes of This Charming Man, though it's not amongst his best work.
DeleteAs I later discovered, Kevorkian was heavily involved in the previous decade's disco scene and continues to work today, seemingly appreciated anew in the 90s, 00s, 10s and 20s. Any kind of career-spanning selection would be a daunting task, so I may do several themed ones in future.