Side 2 of a cassette compilation recorded 22nd January 1997.
Ditching the pumpkins and the 21st Century for some banging 90s beats. Across the 14 mixes and two sides of the original cassette, 1993 is heavily represented. I'm not quite sure why this year was resonating quite so much with me in early 1997, but it was clearly a good year for club music.
Not that any of the other selections are sloppy seconds.
Traci Lords successfully made a career switch from the US porn industry to the UK club scene, teaming up with Juno Reactor for the 1995 album 1000 Fires and getting Paul Oakenfold in to remix her single Fallen Angel. The song was apparently inspired by her childhood journals and Kurt Cobain's suicide the previous year.
Fluke seemed to be everywhere in 1996, including the video games market. Even to non-gamers like me, the soundtrack to Wipeout 2097 was pretty amazing and Fluke's single Atom Bomb was all over it. There were 8 versions across 2 CD singles, which was enough to push it into the UK Top 20.
The Source aka John Truelove aka John Rush hit the motherlode when he paired a 1986 Candi Station with Frankie Knuckles & Jamie Principle's Your Love to create You Got The Love. Initially a bootleg in 1989, further variations cracked the UK Top 10 in 1991, 1997 and 2006. Unfortunately, it kind of threw everything else into the shade, including 1993 single Sanctuary Of Love.
Sanctuary Of Love follows a simple plan, taking an underground club track by US artist Zhana Saunders and transforming into a hard house anthem. Tall Paul's remix ramps up the epic feel, but it remained one for the clubs, making no impact whatsoever on the UK singles chart.
Mark Moore had the unenviable task of following up a smash hit debut album with S'Express. Eschewing the previous rotating cast of vocalists for a single artist, Mark's pairing with Sonia Clarke aka Sonique was inspired, even if it didn't bring the same commercial success. Personally, I think the follow up album Intercourse is hugely underappreciated and lead single Nothing To Lose is as good as anything that had come before.
Usura was an Italian combo who enjoyed a UK #7 hit in January 1993 with Open Your Mind. I don't think follow up single Tear It Up even dented the charts, which is a shame as it's an equally compelling track, with an earthy, compelling vocal. Tear It Up was a co-write with Rollo, yet to find global fame with Faithless, but renowned for his remixes and he really delivers the goods on this one.
Apollo 440 was birthed in 1990 by brothers Howard Gray and Trevor Gray, along with James Gardner and Noko aka Norman Fisher-Jones. Building a reputation though remixes and singles in the early 1990s, they released Millennium Fever, the first of five albums, in 1994. Noko was previously one half of Luxuria with Howard Devoto, who contributed lyrics to Apollo 440's debut album. The pair were reunited when Noko joined the reformed Magazine in 2009.
Closing side 2 and the mixtape is a remix of Culture Club's Miss Me Blind by Ramp aka Shem McCauley and Simon Rogers. Originally released on the Colour By Numbers album in 1983, and as a single outside of the UK, this remix first appeared on US editions of Boy George's single Everything I Own in 1993. I got my mitts on it via The Devil In Sister George EP, which featured updated versions of 5 old songs, aimed squarely at the dancefloor. This one knocks the Culture Club original out of the park.
1) Fallen Angel (Perfecto Mix By Paul Oakenfold) (Single Edit): Traci Lords (1995)
2) Atom Bomb (Atomix 6): Fluke (1996)
3) Sanctuary Of Love (Tall Paul's Jiant Revamp) (Remix By Paul Newman): The Source ft. Zhana Saunders (1993)
4) Nothing To Lose (Original Mix By Mark Moore): S'Express ft. Sonique (1990)
5) Tear It Up (Big, Bold And Sassy Mix By Rollo): Usura (1993)
6) Rumble (12” Version): Apollo 440 (1993)
7) Miss Me Blind (Return To Gender Mix By Ramp): Culture Club (1993)
Oh the irony of that photo K! I may have told you that for years I used to refer myself in front of my students as 'Lord Fendog of Tiddleywink' and then on driving to school one day the sign had gone! I thought the students may have nicked the sign and were going to present it to me with Lord Fendog written above it. Thankfully in the coming days the sign was there again so there had been no stealing of sign for presentation purposes..!
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