Difficult to believe that this LP is now 12 years old. At the time it was produced both drum n’ bass and big beat were approaching critical mass whilst the genre formerly known as ‘trip hop’ was slowly transforming itself into ‘chill out’ and losing any semblance of 'da funk' in the process. An appalling invented pigeonhole it may have been but ‘trip hop’ is possibly the only way to describe the eight tracks and nine interludes that comprise Substances.
Parisian DJ Cam pays homage not only to his hip hop roots on this LP but also the city’s jazz heritage and it’s a smoky, late night cellar bop that infuses all of the tracks especially those like Friends & Enemies with its Malcolm X speech sample and Blue Note piano riff and the weary, bleary eyed blues of Angel Dust. Innervisions begins with a double bass riff that gradually expands via harp, piano and strings into a beautiful voyage around Cam’s internal headspace, Hip Hop Pioneers pays tribute to the likes of Premier, Guru, Jeru, Group Home, Eric B and Rakim and Public Enemy who get name-checked on the sleeve. Guru is obviously an influence on Substances yet here Cam burrows much deeper into the subterranean heart of jazz than his US counterparts.
Elsewhere the LP uses Kakoli Sengupta’s haunting vocals to provide Eastern textures to tracks such as Meera and Lost Kingdom. This a mood piece LP for the wee small hours with only Sound System Children’s pulsating John Carpenter a la Jean-Luc Godard soundtrack and closing track Twilight Zone’s string drenched drum n’ bass upping the tempo to a stoned head-noddin’ pace.
French hip hop was ‘de rigeur’ in the mid-90s but whereas the likes of Dimitri and Daft Punk managed to transcend their Gallic roots to become global players, DJ Cam never really became more than a cult star and trendy name to drop in Jazz Café/Straight No Chaser circles. A pity because at his best, Cam effortlessly fused the past, present and future of ‘urban’ music better than almost anybody.
Thursday 20 March 2008
Tuesday 11 March 2008
Daniele Baldelli - Cosmic Disco? Cosmic Rock!
Review - Cosmic Disco? Cosmic Rock!
Compiled by Daniele Baldelli & Marco Dionigi (Eskimo)
Often hailed as the ‘Godfather of Cosmic Disco’ or as the ‘Midwife of Italo-House’ (we’ve just made that one up), Daniele Baldelli’s reputation as one of the world’s most innovative DJs has recently been re-established. Not to everyone’s taste, Baldelli’s slo-mo disco style stood in marked contrast to the hi-nrg and high tempo club sounds of most US and UK dance floors of the late 70s and early 80s, helping forge what would later become the Italo sound.
During his residency at Italy’s renown ’Cosmic’ club, Baldelli evolved his own unique style that owed little or nothing to established DJing techniques. An obsessive dedication to experimenting with both the pitch and speed of records and how various elements of each tune inter-related at different tempos, Baldelli’s ’Moroder on Methadone’ style marked him out as a DJ who was never content to just play it safe. Relentless chugging basslines and funky synth stabs remain a constant element, the body beat foundation upon which his structures are layered, beat by beat, track by track.
Cosmic Disco? Cosmic Rock! demonstrates the length to which Baldelli goes to in order to seek out the perfect tune for the perfect mix. In common with his Ibizan contemporary Alfredo, Baldelli’s aesthetic dismisses fickle notions of accepted ’cool’ in order to create something far greater than the sum of its parts. Hence we get the likes of Martha & The Muffins, The Thompson Twins, Ray Parker Junior and The Dream Syndicate next to Fra Lippo Lippi, the Bronx Irish Catholics and La Bionda.
The pulsating flow of this fantastic mix is rarely broken, and whilst it’s now difficult to appreciate quite how radical this Italo-Balearic style was almost 25 years after Cosmic closed its doors, it’s nice to see Baldelli receiving credit for the untold hours he put in during his creative heyday.
Tracklist :
1 Fra Lippo Lippi- Say Something
2 Richard Bone - Mutant Wisdom
3 The Romantics - A Night Like This
4 Kevin Harrison - Ink Man
5 Translator - Break Down Barriers
6 Martha & The Muffins - Danseparc (Every Day It’s Tomorrow)
7 The Dream Syndicate - 50 In A 25 Zone
8 Thompson Twins - Beach Culture
9 Positive Noise - Positive Negative
10 David Jackson - Stonewall Stands With Thomas Davies
11 La Bionda - I Got Your Number
12 Torch Song - Prepare To Energize
13 Ray Parker Junior - -The Other Woman
14 Strafe Fur Rebellion - Mosche Bildt Njet
15 Spirit - Potatoland Theme
16 Spider - Better Be Good To Me
17 Bronx Irish Catholics - Ulster Defense
18 Alicia Bridges - Body heat
Release date - 21st April
Compiled by Daniele Baldelli & Marco Dionigi (Eskimo)
Often hailed as the ‘Godfather of Cosmic Disco’ or as the ‘Midwife of Italo-House’ (we’ve just made that one up), Daniele Baldelli’s reputation as one of the world’s most innovative DJs has recently been re-established. Not to everyone’s taste, Baldelli’s slo-mo disco style stood in marked contrast to the hi-nrg and high tempo club sounds of most US and UK dance floors of the late 70s and early 80s, helping forge what would later become the Italo sound.
During his residency at Italy’s renown ’Cosmic’ club, Baldelli evolved his own unique style that owed little or nothing to established DJing techniques. An obsessive dedication to experimenting with both the pitch and speed of records and how various elements of each tune inter-related at different tempos, Baldelli’s ’Moroder on Methadone’ style marked him out as a DJ who was never content to just play it safe. Relentless chugging basslines and funky synth stabs remain a constant element, the body beat foundation upon which his structures are layered, beat by beat, track by track.
Cosmic Disco? Cosmic Rock! demonstrates the length to which Baldelli goes to in order to seek out the perfect tune for the perfect mix. In common with his Ibizan contemporary Alfredo, Baldelli’s aesthetic dismisses fickle notions of accepted ’cool’ in order to create something far greater than the sum of its parts. Hence we get the likes of Martha & The Muffins, The Thompson Twins, Ray Parker Junior and The Dream Syndicate next to Fra Lippo Lippi, the Bronx Irish Catholics and La Bionda.
The pulsating flow of this fantastic mix is rarely broken, and whilst it’s now difficult to appreciate quite how radical this Italo-Balearic style was almost 25 years after Cosmic closed its doors, it’s nice to see Baldelli receiving credit for the untold hours he put in during his creative heyday.
Tracklist :
1 Fra Lippo Lippi- Say Something
2 Richard Bone - Mutant Wisdom
3 The Romantics - A Night Like This
4 Kevin Harrison - Ink Man
5 Translator - Break Down Barriers
6 Martha & The Muffins - Danseparc (Every Day It’s Tomorrow)
7 The Dream Syndicate - 50 In A 25 Zone
8 Thompson Twins - Beach Culture
9 Positive Noise - Positive Negative
10 David Jackson - Stonewall Stands With Thomas Davies
11 La Bionda - I Got Your Number
12 Torch Song - Prepare To Energize
13 Ray Parker Junior - -The Other Woman
14 Strafe Fur Rebellion - Mosche Bildt Njet
15 Spirit - Potatoland Theme
16 Spider - Better Be Good To Me
17 Bronx Irish Catholics - Ulster Defense
18 Alicia Bridges - Body heat
Release date - 21st April
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