Cassy plays Dance Mania tracks on RA podcast but WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

Robert Armani - 'Circus Bells' (of COURSE)
DJ Sneak - 'Operation SNEAK' (KILLER)
Lil Louis - 'Video Clash' (mixed into Audion)
Paul Johnson - 'Give me ecstasy'

But NOT 'Work that motherfucker' which just doesn't seem to sound right.

:)

circuit breaker, hit hard, basement rats, fuse box, score board

i do have dreams of 'me & u' segueing into fairmont's 'gazebo' though.

this would be so so hot

http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/114/alienuh2.gifhttp://img214.imageshack.us/img214/114/alienuh2.gifhttp://img214.imageshack.us/img214/114/alienuh2.gif

Magda's is enjoyable, but it's nicer for listening to in the background as it wiggles around than being any kind of "club" mix.

[turns into wacky scientist in Repo Man] Not...at...all! The middle section feels like a submarine dive. Total aquatic bliss. I don't care about the end, and the beginning is too Dimitri-circa-1994 (I tend to skip the first 10 minutes or so.)

Redshape - Pink Dust (bright & busy)
Auto-Repeat - What Turned Itself (handclaps! on the 8th beat, "ya gotta... whatever turns you on..")
Tobias. - Below Houston (lovely twinkling keys, crusty filter sweeps)
Yassin & Arne - Bleepy Creep (Cassy Remix) (like thumping minimal Kelis heavy breathing on your neck? - SO hot)

not warm, wet and housey? and those are all middle section tracks, with other breakouts of undeniable gorgeousness at the start/ends. I would agree she has very dry tracks, but she alternates them all the way through the mix, which creates tension but not rigidity it's not a teeth-grinding take on minimal for me.

I'm very surprised people aren't feeling this so much. It's not "wet" in that melodic minmal/electro/housey way no, it's CRISP, JACKING and SWEATY!

This is probably redundant but give it a properly LOUD play, on a real stereo at least once to appreciate the underlying, steady THROB of this mix.

Mind you I've always been a bit underwhelmed by Melchior Productions too. I'm not sure if I'm really into house that's so... reduced... without something else in there to replace what's taken out.

But...but...there's this unique sense of space left in Melchior Productions (at least i always thought he was aiming for this as per his mate Baby Ford, sort of light space vs. dark space....erm...Philip probably knows what I'm talking about :)

what's with all these mixes which are deathly dull for the first half and amazing in the second half? alex smoke's scifihifi vol 2 does this too. as did luciano's!

is house back? Not just deep house but todd terry, paul johnson, armando..

yes

best revive ever

It never left, you just followed shit trends for 6 years.

is house back lol.

"It never left, you just followed shit trends for 6 years.

-- Display Name"

amen.

speaking of dance mania, i just ordered this off of ebay for $10 sealed earlier today:

http://www.discogs.com/release/490481

i can't wait to get that one in the mail. i love the artwork and aesthetic of dance mania so fucking much, probably my favorite label for that kind of stuff. i love the art on this CD:

http://www.discogs.com/release/579514

plus the dance mania "ghetto house music" t-shirt i have, i guess i'm something of a dance mania fan boy ;)

Ya'll Dance Mania fan-peoples should get that new Dj Deeon and Slugo - Ghetto Classics 12"!

http://www.discogs.com/release/1137957

and I will co-sign on Ghetto Classics, that whole record is gold.

brutal revive

Seriously, I come back to this Cassy mix all the time. I love the perlon/tuning spork and todd terry/paul johnson, old and new vibe.

cassy's own productions are getting better and better. 'poem' was awesome enough, but i can't get enough of those vox on 'april'...

idle blues: what a tune..

ive become more convinced that dance mania is the greatest label of all time and dj deeon the greatest producer of all time ... fight me

I agree with you

alarmingly little Content in the ilx archives about the true breadth of this label honestly

I do kind of feel like a lot of the appreciation for it I sometimes see out on the internet is 1. how humorously lewd is it, and 2. how much does it overlap with the somewhat more serious Techno sound

I think the overlap with Relief records is almost more interesting, to me, anyway -- where the grooves are somehow both hypnotic and unpredictable (which is a seeming contradiction in some ways), like they get locked into a groove and then these small rhythmic changes that feel kind of 'offbeat' make you reassess your perspective of the whole song ... like the 'magic eye trick' weve been arguing about in the luda thread but as a genre

Noooo, turn back!

lol. I dont actually want to argue about it but you know what im talking about right

in *this* context i think im saying something you will readily agree with!!

i'm thinking of stuff like DJ rush where the patterns are a bit unpredictable & polythmic and so on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvPYlS7Whpw

I dont actually want to fight ITT I wont disrespect dance mania that way !! nonetheless I love the way aspects of this sound offer so much rhythmic variance in the house template which typically I don't think ppl perceive as being so polyrhythmic or just describe as 'four on the floor'

Haha ok I think that's true, but I think that's common to a lot of minimal techno (not a lot of musical signposts to dictate where the phrase starts, so yeah it can be heard in different ways and that can be a cool thing).

oh yeah I don't think its *exclusive* to this stuff exactly, although I think how chicago house went about it in this era was very unique. (there are current producers like robert bergman who kind of carry on this chicago-specific derived affect I think). Also obviously uk funky or tribal house would have their own ways of going about it

I was actually listening to some recent Traxx (from chicago keeping the Sound Alive) records and thinking about how the snare kind of reminded me of some UK funky stuff, or "township funk" or even "pon de floor", despite having very ron hardy influenced origins

another thing that I noticed going through a lot of it is robert armani is a genius but also he kind of seems to typically avoid all "offbeat" (for lack of a better etc) stuff altogether despite being totally in the mix. the 'offbeat' sound is obviously not *defining* of the label or time but it is a really cool strain of it.

Here's the Traxx record i'm talking about
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QigPU9g3gT0

here's another beautiful Relief release that I think does something really cool rhythmically in this style

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOzXjktKa-I

^^^A cool thing if you have this record is that it's somehow set up at the very end of the song so hits the label and resets, it just loops forever and never ends, extremely cool trick

(the traxx one is a little misleading in this convo I suppose because i dont think its an especially rhythmically 'off' example but it does feel like the snare is kind of the 'lead instrument' in a way we dont associate w four on the floor, I guess part of what im reaching for here is an idea of the percussion being a lead instrument in part)

feel like that is true for a decent bit of house and techno, tho maybe more so the hardware stuff from the nineties compared to today.

nice tune, that gene farris.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD_73f61ldM

Paul Johnson - Groove Melody

untouchable

Freaks in Front, and Not Normal both really nice but Groove Melody is too far ahead

this one's incredible, Brandy sample, I kind of wondered if this is where Eris Drew's name originated

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXVF6M-G6DA

the early jana rush single def has a dj rush esque feel to it as well. I dont think there were really non-dance mania/relief/chicago house beats that sounded anything like this rhythmically

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYGtrFcYwUA

I think what I like about the tricky rhythms approach to house music I detect in dance mania stuff is that it's kind of a common thread here that while not present on every record feels somewhat unique to the label (and adjacent labels of the era like cosmic or relief or aqua boogie or etc) but obviously the overall 'sound' of dance mania is really incredibly diverse ... dreamy one moment and brutal the next, funny one moment and melancholic the next, tricky and cerebral and blunt and uncompromising, there really is a 'world on the head of pin' eclecticism here that spans emotional and textural space

I think one of my favs of the lewd ones is dj lil tal's "Questions"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTZ_9w5L71w

and at the other end of the spectrum, gant man started djing in his early teens and one of his first releases for the label -- I calculate he must have been 15 or so?? was a juke version of the three stooges theme!! I love that lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ujwu8y6wHxI

love this dj deeon track

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvZCuN8-2uM

I was listening to this (amazing) 12" (not even my fav song on it) and thinking about how obviously this sound must have been percolating in the early kanye inspiration pool ... certainly sounds much more like 00s 'ye beats than anything made in new york or wherever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Idf_yNjordM

I still drop Traxmen - ‘Playing With A Rubber Band’ in sets from time to time :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp7kOisi7GQ

great song