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Rating: The fluid music, for consumption, that captures a moment or an evening.
That serves as wallpaper during a cocktail or hits the charts when it becomes a hit in Ibiza.
It releases on singles, maxi singles, 7-inch, 12-inch, on iTunes.
Very nice. Thank you. Even poetic, if you will.
But after ten years, it's hard to put the pieces back together.
Memory isn't such a good companion, and the risk of oblivion is just around the corner, especially with the arrival of new trends.
Therefore, a phenomenon like Garage House is difficult to reconstruct after years and is hard to rediscover unless some nostalgic DJ drops a re-re-mix on the dance floor while you're too drunk to pay attention to the music.
I greatly appreciate projects like the one reviewed here, which have that necessary anthological value to bring order to chaos (I've already given birth to the dancing star, and I'm good with that, thanks).
We are talking about an operation, if you will, colossal, that anthologizes the work of one of the main "acts" of the aforementioned House Garagista movement; a blend of the classic "four on the floor" and acid jazz, soul, Latino influences.
Little Louie Vega (the master) and Kenny Dope Gonzalez (the disciple) start from the Bronx, establish in Manhattan, and fly into the Ibiza charts; the first more chic, the second more boom box, for at least ten years they dictate the word of a genre that finds its natural environment on the dance floor but remains interesting to spin on the turntable even over time and as fashions change.
This first part of the anthology gathers (as easy to imagine) the first five years of the duo's activity in its multifaceted incarnations. Years already dotted with successes, although perhaps the perfect blend of the various impulses has not yet reached its peak.
The collection has the merit of being compiled by the two DJs in person and is divided into four discs, each exploring one of the duo's various souls.
It is worth, from an anthological point of view, to dwell on the various parts to help a hypothetical new user navigate such a considerable music offering.
01 - VOCALS
And here are the hits that made the Big Money and Big Number 1s.
And the collection perhaps opens with the most club-busting track of all, an optimal fusion point between the Latino culture and Mister Vega's club chic: "Love & Happiness".
This has little to do with the blue angel, trendy clubbing white shirts, or the insatiable desire for fun on Saturday nights of fifteen-year-olds. The matter begins in another dimension.
A salsa record is produced: "Llegó La India Via Eddie Palmieri". La India sings it, Louie produces it, but the legend is Eddie Palmieri. And in this record, there’s a song called "Yemaya y Ochun", which seems to be the name of a deity belonging to a Caribbean pantheon.
Louie and La India get along during that time, and that name piques their interest, so they start exploring Yoruba and want to showcase their spirituality, return to roots, and all sorts of things we'd laugh at if posted on social media. But no.
With all that sense of returning to origins, they decide to sing a prayer, and they do. And they record it. And there’s a need for tribalism, which they task none other than Tito Puente to bring to the studio, where he plays for an hour, and out of all his performance, they sample two minutes to loop through the song.
The risk of gaudiness is high, but the final result is absolutely not; La India's voice is astounding, and it is said that when Tito Puente joined her on stage at the Sound Factory Club, the club exploded, though if I had been there, I’d have been too drunk and focused on my sole reason for dancing to notice. But it would have been wonderful all the same.
We can't help but talk about Barbara Tucker, another memorable voice from this first record. Donna Summer Soul of the '90s invites Vega to play in Miami. And Vega stays in Miami for a while, connecting with the Underground Network, and with a voice like hers, recording and writing songs becomes inevitable. "Beautiful People" becomes her first number 1 with its double chorus, powerful soul, its organs, and its call and response. The goal was to move the body, but it's a pleasure to pause and pay attention.
A delightful little disc, this first Volume also offers a fun remix of "Comin' On Strong", delightful in all its '90s innocence, more number 1 hits from Barbara and La India, one of Vega's earliest successes (from the album collaboration with a then-unknown Marc Anthony who later became the most profitable salsa singer ever), and other surprises for the beauty of one hour and ten minutes.
02 - DUBS AND MAW VOCALS
A chapter mainly focused on the duo's activities as remix masters.
Perhaps the slightly less interesting part of the collection, compiling somewhat too well-known remixes, albeit many "dubbed" in instrumental version and truly very distant from the originals (Lisa Stansfield, Simply Red, Chic, Trey Lorenz...) except perhaps more interesting episodes like the remixes for Bjork, Soul II Soul, Saint Etienne and other groups closer to an alternative audience's taste.
Of note are the two tracks that update Tito Puente's mambo to the '90s dance floors, a Latino syncretism so dear to Mister Vega (noteworthy is Tito Puente's direct involvement in these remixes) and perhaps one of his tastiest achievements in the club/glamour scene.
03 - BEATS AND LOOPS
Because the four-on-the-floor is ok, but sometimes two balls.
Kenny “Dope” Gonzales uses the name Master At Works when he and his crew throw parties for friends in Brooklyn. A young rascal from the block loves hip-hop and making a racket; friends of friends, neighborhood record companies, early experiments, clubs. One of his songs reaches Mister Vega's ears with the promise of a callback, but instead, it's just a false promise.
But Gonzalez finds him at home, all the way in the Bronx, and something begins. Gonzalez is recruited as a beat maker while Vega makes the record with Marc Anthony, a certain way of cutting one's teeth.
But yes, after a while, the four-on-the-floor can be dull: so they dust off the old vinyl. And one day, they arrive in the studio with a beat sampled from an obscure jazz record that still adds much glamour (after all, it's not like you're working for the neighborhood dealer), and on that beat, his partner has fun: thus arises "The Nervous Track", and for this new direction, it is necessary to coin another alias for the duo. Thus arrives "Nuoyorican Soul", yet another dance floor syncretism endeavor that will see future collaborations with artists like George Benson and Roy Ayers (just to name the most famous).
Meanwhile, MAW Records is born to ensure nothing is lost.
It starts with the Kenlou series (here in the lineup, the first three chapters), and we're starting to really get the hang of it as we should. Trip hop, jazz, soulfulness condensed in three truly remarkable episodes.
But we’re still not at the best. And here Kenny surprises us because he does everything alone, and under the name (another...and ENOUGH!) BucketHeads, he releases "The Bomb". Released as a B-Side, a slowburner that literally explodes across the ocean, becoming an instant classic.
A 15-minute ride: pulsations and tribalism overlaid with a terminator X scratch crescendo. You're in it, hypnotized, feel the rhythm in your blood, from the ghetto, bro: and then all of a sudden, Chicago blasting Street Life. It fits, guys, always remember where we came from, bro, but here’s the alarm recall why we came and where we want to go. Tonight. And all summer. And the bro train sets off. With Peter Cetera singing "Street sounds swirling through my mind", and he too is a street kid. And 15 minutes are never enough.
04 - TOOLS AND GROOVES
one-two-three-Ha!
You might have wondered how it could be missing, and yet here it is, opening the last tome of this dance encyclopedia.
"The Ha Dance": a role play, the exchange of roles, perhaps its destiny already. Vega sampling the fierce hip hop allusions over Kenny's house beat. A song with a history, becoming a queer anthem, queer black and Latinos, the soundtrack of 90s ballrooms, the fake slump on the fourth beat: "Ha!". The ghetto of the ghetto strutting on the catwalk and demanding its slice of glam.
But it's worth continuing, as this fourth volume continues the deep exploration, the jazz blending, the dusky rhythms of autumn evenings.
It's worth letting oneself be enveloped by the basses of "Bass Tone", a sophisticated exercise at the limits of steroid-enhanced trip-hop, or by the classic "We Can Make It" with its powerful soul voices.
In "Reach" there’s also a tribute to the siren that played at Heartthrob, and now as then the siren announces the DROP. Yes, finally even those stylish MAWs throw in the drop, and on this one, I’d have danced with pleasure.
But it's time to turn the lights back on and return to reality.
And what better than a soft rhythmic carpet to accompany an adrenaline-loving and in-love young crowd out, what better than to mix with Davisian coolness, the trumpet of Ray Vega with the soulful choruses to guide the dreams of young people of every era to the lights of the new morning.
Four discs, hours of music. And it’s just the first of two chapters in this titanic anthology: the rest I'll let you discover on your own.
A dance floor that never ends.
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