This is famous for the first track, which is, as far as I know, the only remix that Kraftwerk released during their classic period. It is a remix in the strict sense of the word, created at the mixing desk by manipulating the knobs and faders, and adding effects. The dug-dugga-dugga-dugga rhythm that you know and love only appears during the first few bars.
Once the strings enter, it is faded out, and in its place the squelchy, staccato bassline is mixed much louder, and becomes the lead instrument. During the verses, every other snare/handclap is fed through a reverb machine, which unfortunately makes the song sound very dated today. To my ear it sounds as if everything else, including the percussion, is the same as the original version of Computerwelt, which I preferred.
This was a very early modern-day remix, and we should be thankful that it's not the dreaded mid-80s "extended instrumental version" that filled up lots of dire twelve-inch records. I have not heard the regular German version of Computerwelt II. I notice that the version on this record has a slightly different mixture of computer voices during the fade-out at the end of the song than in the version on the English Computer World CD.
In particular, the German-language countdown at the beginning of Numbers is triggered again. This was the fourth and last in Virgin Records' zeitgeist-capturing ambient compilation album series. Whereas the previous three double-CD sets were drawn exclusively from Virgin's back catalogue - albeit that Virgin could draw on Brian Eno, Tangerine Dream, the Future Sound of London etc - this album was drawn from all over the place and even contained a number of original tracks, some of which are still quite rare ("Aphex Airlines", for example).
It's a commendably out-there compilation, with Disco Inferno, Zoviet*France, Total, O'Rang and a number of other acts who had been lumped in with the ambient boom (this was just before the terms "illbient" and "post-rock" had been invented). It's my favourite of the four compilations and makes for excellent Doom background music. Unfortunately for The Shamen, their early history as a credible indie-rave band and their apparently sincere belief in the transformative power of dance music was utterly obliterated by their short reign as Britain's most infamous chart rave band.
After the success of 'Move any Mountain' and 'LSI', both of which were used a lot on television football, the group had a four-week stay at number one with 'Ebeneezer Goode', which became a tabloid sensation when it was pointed out to journalists that the chorus - 'eezer goode, eezer goode, he's Ebeneezer Goode' - was about ecstacy, the popular rave drug. From that point onwards the group were synonymous with naffness, and along with all the other dances acts of the period they faded away to nothing, with a little comeback in 1995 with 'Destination Eschaton'. Just goes to show that if you're on a sinking ship in the freezing waters of the Atlantic, you're going to drown even if you barge your way to the front of the lifeboat.
Might as well go down with dignity. Mr C's vocal delivery was very different to that of the late Will Sinott; the latter was low-key and sincere, whereas Mr C was brash and cock-er-nee. Nothing wrong with that, but it didn't seem right for a band which emphasised the contemplative, spiritual side of dance music.
He is now a successful DJ, which is nice to know. 'Boss Drum' remains a decent summary of the state of popular dance music in Britain in 1992, and 'Phorever People' is a lovely ballad. 'En-Tact' sounds quite spartan, but it has a nice remix of 'Hear Me' by Orbital, which has a similar vocal effect to their later 'Halcyon'.
The Bee Gees need no introduction; they started out as a Beatles-esque 60s band, releasing a bunch of morbid ballady singles and a splendid concept double-album called 'Odessa', and then they went quiet before exploding in the late-1970s as a white soul/disco band/songwriting team. After a fallow 1980s they re-emerged in the 1990s as a goldmine for teen-pop bands, with 'How Deep Is Your Love' and 'Tragedy' being recycled a couple of times over. Maurice Gibb joined the late Andy Gibb, and the remaining duo decided to stop using the Bee Gees name in 2003.
There's a little trivia fact about the Bee Gees, which has been written about elsewhere. Whilst recording 'Staying Alive', the follow-up to 'Night Fever', they found themselves temporarily without a drummer. So their producer, Albhy Galuten, took part of the drum track for 'Night Fever', copied and pasted it onto two inch tape several times in a row, and looped the resulting length of tape around some microphone stands.
In the process he invented the drum loop. And indeed it is noticeable that the drums in 'Staying Alive' don't change at all throughout the song, apart from a couple of overdubs. the same loop was apparently used in both 'More than a Woman' and 'I Am a Woman in Love' by Barbra Streisand.
Patrick Cowley was one of the artists who bridged the gap between disco and the hi-NRG sound of the mid-80s; he wasn't quite a pioneer of modern electronic dance music, instead occupying a similar off-to-one-side spot as Giorgio Moroder, Jan Hammer, Harold Faltermeyer and the like. His style is essentially derivative of Moroder, although he has left behind a number of classic disco singles, including 'Do You Wanna Funk', 'Menergy' and his voluminous remix of Donna Summer's 'I Feel Love'. He was also a talented synth keyboardist, and is part of a generation of early electronic musicians - again, just like Hammer, Moroder, and so forth - who grew up at a time when synthesisers were generally seen in the forbidding, academic context of experimental music, and who took the tools of Stockhausen etc and used them to make people dance.
Listened to in 2005, his music had dated, but in a generally good way; the production uses a lot of analogue synthesisers and real drums, and consequently it doesn't sound as thin and weedy as pop-dance singles from later in the decade ('Menergy' has an unimpressive 'robot voice' effect but otherwise swoops and swooshes in the classic style, and has a wonderful soaring disco diva vocal). Indeed, he was an early exponent of the kind of 'big production' that became mainstream in rock music during the 80s, but instead applied to synthesisers. He was big in gay disco circles, didn't really cross over into the mainstream, and is a cult figure nowadays.
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