DHS 12 - Part 2 (H)

D
Plan B - not a fan of that spoken word at all I'm afraid, I like the beats, the piano and Plans flow is pretty good to be fair but that spoken word spoils it quite a bit for me I'm afraid.
Propellerheads - there's a name I didn't think I'd be typing in 2013!  Totally forgotten about them to be honest!  It's a good fun track - who doesn't love the Bond music?
Air - yeah this alongside the first Daft Punk LP (shortly followed by Cassius' first album) was the re-birth of French pop via a very retro-kitsch-chic heavily Glam-Disco influenced sound and I loved and still love pretty much all of it. Ace.
Desire - first heard this whilst watching Drive and love it very very much.  HOWEVER, the version on the soundtrack has no spoken nonsense in the middle and that's the version I prefer.  Breathy spoken stuff sounds overly tacky in my opinion. Great tune though and it's already in one of my lists on the strength of the music.
Grandmaster - it's just an absolute monster this tune.  Cracking track to finish on mate - nice one.

S
Frankie V - This, for me, is one of the best records you've added since DHS inception.  That is bold but it is such a bona fide classic record and one that I have loved since my mate played it to me at uni (he's a real northern soul fanatic)...the vocals are just immense - why can't/don't people make tunes like this anymore?!  I own up completely to having bought the Pilooski remixes of both this and Beggin' when they came out (5/6/7 years ago?) - in truth he's done nothing special to them at all other than add chunkier beats which just transfers better for the car/full volume party listening.
Donna S - THIS version of MacArthur is really exceptionally catching...lyrically it is, of course, as mad as a bottle of chips, BUT Summer's vocals are just f-ing immense...and the Heaven knows section is pure gold; I love it.
Marti C - wow, very playable (Chuggy Disco), very much my kind of pace/production. Lush.
Pete L - hehehe; recently revisiting NE1 Disc 2 wasn't all bad then?! Smashing record, proper thumper with some brilliant bass.
Booka SA rmx - do like this very much, it's mega smooth with lush production BUT I've always plumped for the Booka In Space Mix myself.

Right - slightly daunting task but it's all good fun in the end... I've been dealing with this next five for around three months now.  I have tried, although it might seem odd when looking at a couple of the tracks, to find some records which I think are either the background/building blocks to the music which bought us together, coupled with one or two more which are just pure celebrations of the same.  I hope you enjoy... in all cases I wanted them to be uplifting and in my opinion any one of them is worthy of #1000 but that role could only go to but one tune....

996
This may seem odd but we don't have our beloved records without the structure of classical music.  This, for me, is the most beautiful example of a Canon and a lot of the best (melodic) stuff we listen to revolves around a Canon in 2 (if not 3, sometimes more).  I don't associate this with weddings fortunately, I just remember being 6, at primary school, and it was played on the way in to assembly one morning....how amazing it sounded and how I felt.  As I've gotten older I think I've really appreciated, compositionally, its excellence.  If you want to talk about 'progressive music' - the layering and progression in this is second to none.

997
Big jump now to one of THE most influential dance records of its era... we all know the numerous and most famous samples, of course, but this is actually a monster track all of its own and that is why I believe it is referenced so much in dance/pop even to this day (last sample was earlier this year or back end of 2012 if memory serves)... even in some modern r'n'b records I've heard phrasing/a direct vocal lift from this tune used.  I'd have no compunction in playing this to an audience no matter how camp it might be (fortunately for the population of the world and their ears I do not play records to them)

998
Is there much that needs to be said?!  We're in early-ish progressive mode now... truth be told it could have been either this or YAP from the eponymous LP but I knew this from a young age and it has a special place in my heart.... four other tunes from NE1 made it onto the shortlist (NE2.1 has been done to death by us it seems!) but I think this is an especially uplifting record and is a worthy addition.

999
Main room Bedrock mayhem.  Proper 3am penultimate tune of the night material.  Just relentless.  I don't care if it might be termed 'euphoric' it was destruction on the dancefloor and caused me several minutes of meltdown on more than one occasion (that motorcycle bassline breakdown/growl followed by the kick back and melody - buzzin').  The good old days of three raves on the bounce, 72 hours of blurred brilliance.

1000
.....................................................................................................................................
I deliberated for a LONG time over this.  I really wanted to get this right for all three of us - a tune which comes from the early years/'old skool' era of our music which is, in my humble, still relevant and playable now.  Big melody, uplifting, superb production (considering it was 1990!) - unquestionably catchy with endless amounts of energy - I could listen to this more than once of a night out in a club, no problems.  A true classic.

So many tunes that could have been used but in some instances the proper or original version was not available and so I have chosen the above. Again; I hope you've enjoyed a few.

Well done lads - some monumental music has been added to these 'ere lists - long may it continue and as ever.....keep on keeping on,
H

DHS 12 - Part 1 (S)

Ian Pooley - lovely - can say no better than have acquired it with a view to playing it
Voorn - see Pooley
Mano Le Tough - been some great remixes of Mano stuff this year and this is up there on top of the pile
Ten Walls - as you noted, it's not Requiem but it ain't bad - both were acquired for a while back for future airings
Roland M Dill - gone are the days when I can listen to stuff like this outside the context of a mix - the previous four stand up for me as individual tracks - this needs a mix into and out of to make it work. But yeah, it's very big. Got the EP.


Plan B - not sure that the Coronation Street of Cooper Clarke's delivery works well with the Eastenders of Plan B's and, not having seen it, the film samples mean nothing to me.  Plan B is interesting - in all honesty and with bias to one side, he could do with some of Dan Kent's beats - the one underneath this sounds a bit tame compared to Dan's. Piano's lovely though.
Propellerheads - this lot were the music press darlings of the mid/late 90s - best thing they ever released though was the 'Reason' production software.  Always had them filed under 'Trying to be Fluke'.  They did something with Shirley Bassey too didn't they?  Another Bond theme?  Not for me anyway.
Air - D, the fact you admit to needing to Shazam this is one of the main reasons I started the (still yet to take off) DHS-LP - the Moon Safari album from which this comes would comfortably be in my all time top 20 and possibly inside the top 10 - the sound of what you'd get if you forced Moby and M83 to make an album together.
Desire - not heard it before - reminds me of something though...
Grandmaster Flash - it is high time this track appeared but I'm not sure about this 'rerecorded/remastered' version - drums sound wrong and sounds like he had a yoghurt pot on a string for a mic.  Classic bassline though, which leads me nicley into...


Frankie Valli - The bassline alone ranks it above most other music ever recorded - add into that a great sentiment, a big tune, some killer melodies and a ranking as one of the ALL time great 'Northern Soul' records and this record too is long overdue on DHS

Donna Summer - a good while back now I put a track on here by the actor Richard Harris and, I think it's fair to say, neither of you entirely appreciated it...  In fact I was ridiculed!  And I said it didn't end there and it hasn't.  Not only did Donna Summer, contemporaneously just about the biggest recording artist on the planet, think the song was worthy of a disco version (it was) she did a fuller, much rarer, version - the 'Suite' - which included not only her cover of the Harris classic but two other of her own tracks (One Of A Kind & Heaven Knows) woven in and out of the mix to provide an almost 18 minute flat out, bona-fide, glitterball classic.  And, guess what, 'it' doesn't end here either...

Martie Caine - MARTIE CAINE!!!  Can you Adam 'n Eve it?  Marti Caine on DHS!  As featured in Bill Brewster's recent, immense, Late Night Tales commercial mix, this is filth.  Bassline.  Again.  Lovely arrangement, some fabulous strings - a middle section with no bassline that sounds almost 1920s'ish and then, whoomp, bassline back again.  And a great vocal throughout.  Tune.

Pete Lazonby - already got his Sacred Cycles on DHS - always felt this was a much bigger and better tune - cream from near the top of the Prog bottle - big for Digweed around the time of Northern Exposure and BY FAR the best Junior Vasquez remix I've ever heard.

Booka Shade - I absolutely love this tune - one of the best 'deep-tech' tunes of recent years - as close to perfect as any remix has a right to get

Audi...