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12"
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RBSSS 009EP
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Greg Wilson returns to Running Back with another special project. Forty years on from the release of the groundbreaking Street Sounds UK Electro LP, "Real Time" (two versions of which opened the separate sides of the album), finally gets a 12" release. Despite its prominence on UK Electro, it was the only inclusion not to be issued on 12" back in 1984. Zer-o, like Syncbeat and Forevereaction, were the same trio -- Manchester musicians, Martin Jackson and Andy Connell, and DJ Greg Wilson, making his first foray into record production. They also teamed up with rappers, Kermit and Fiddz, for the Broken Glass track, "Style Of The Street," one of the early UK hip hop releases. Fictional production and songwriting credits were added by Street Sounds to suggest a thriving British electro scene, the music having blown-up in New York during '82/'83, with the Street Sounds Electro series, launched in October '83, documenting these developments and unlocking a significant youth market who'd religiously collect these compilations. Featured here is a Greg Wilson edit of "Real Time," the "retrospective dub" (the UK Electro opener, which was in fact the original demo version of the track), and a Gerd Janson bonus beats edit. Flip it over and you'll find a pair of 2024 reworks -- the retrospective dub, and the more downtempo introspective dub -- courtesy of Greg and Ché Wilson, whose recent collaborations have included remixes for Gabriels and Confidence Man.
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12"
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RBSSS 008EP
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The notion of house music as a form of up-tempo soul music is intrinsic evidence with a record like the one on hand. Professor Supercool's If You Love Somebody is many things at once: an example of a special brand of British pop music, influenced by US-American soul more or less from the get-go, the Second Summer of Love, the conception of Balearic as a music genre, the cultural interchange of European dance floors and DJs from across the pond and underground music marketing through the vessel of special one-time pressings. The mysterious Professor Supercool is actually a moniker for Dr. Rob of The Blow Monkeys' fame, who produced the song with a veteran and legendary DJ of the Northern Soul scene The Real Hector, a resident at the famous Wag Club. Originally a part of the band's album Spring Time For The World, it appeared first as a special For-Promotion-Only-12" in 1989 with limited information as a trial ballon to "avoid preconceptions." The fear was without reason. Like the band's other big dance floor record and Balearic fave LA Passionara a year later, it got played and supported by the DJs of its time. Next to Graeme Park at the Hacienda or Paul Oakenfold, it also got picked up by Mastermixer Tony Humphries and became a staple at his radio and club sets for KissFm respectively Club Zanzibar. While the vocal mix found its way on said album, the preferred 12" instrumental version has never been released anywhere else up until now and made the record go for a substantial amount of Discogs dollars. Expanded with an edit by the label's in-house DJ Gerd Janson that is supposed to work as a dub alternative to the vocal mix, the 12-inch and bundle download contain the original plus a faithfully restored and remastered version of the instrumental in demand. If you love this record, it is impossible to let it go.
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12"
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RBSSS 005EP
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Master Plan was the Chicago based dance music project of Pepper Gomez and Tom O'Callahan. Spanning from 1984 to 1986, the groups development is in sync with the dance music scene of Chicago during that era. While their first record "Pushin' Too Hard" is a Windy City version of the NYC club music of the time and its European cross-pollination, "Electric Baile" from two years later down the line is almost a quantum jump into house music. With the engineering help of Matt Warren, it bears the marks of Ron Hardy, Chip E, Farley Jackmaster Funk, or the WBMX dance party craze, if you will. Here you have remastered and updated versions by Enzo Elia and Gerd Janson. The first ones's edit attempt of "Electric Baile" ignited this edition. A custom-tailored main mix is completed by a dub and useful bonus beat version to do, what DJs used to do. Concluded by two edits of "Pushin' Too Hard" by GJ, you get two great slices of yesterday that are still major dance music blue prints today.
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12"
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RBSSS 007EP
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A central theme in the life and work of the British DJ pioneer Greg Wilson, UK electro is a page turner. With the seminal Street Sounds compilation from 1984 being the beacon, there are still a few overlooked corners. "XXXO" by Equip is one of them. Originally intended to be part of said release and produced by Greg Wilson, Martin Jackson, and Andy Connell (like most of the comp), it was turned down at the time. Sounding like a like a proto-house template with a dash of Klein & MBO, it wasn't considered strong enough at the time, but found its way to the public as a one-sided 12" in 2006, it felt like a brand-new track as it perfectly correlated with the electro influenced underground dance music mainstream at the time (Chicken Lips et al.) Here it is again: remastered, rekindled, and unreduced cut to 45rpm. Pressed and released for the first time on this planet though are the "ICA Beats Pt 1" and "Pt 2". Intended to be backing tracks for a UK electro live appearance in August '84, they haven't seen the light of day until now. Both restored and re-edited with some help of label owner Gerd Janson, they are fierce examples of the sound at the time. Sitting between rhythm tracks and experimental drum machine compositions (and a short greeting from their creators' other project Syncbeat), it makes you wonder how one could have lived for so long without them. The history of the past enables you to dream of the future.
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12"
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RBSSS 006EP
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Berlin-based synthoholic and Watergate resident Biesmans steps up for the sixth installment of Running Back's Super Sound Singles series. Taking inspiration from Confetti's 1988 new beat smash "This Is The Sound Of C", Biesmans revisits his Belgian roots and reimagines three gems from Belgium's rich '80s music scene. Firstly, Biesmans gets to grips with synth pop stalwarts Schmutz and their '80s breakthrough "Love Games", polishing the track up with a motorik disco sheen and chunky bass arpeggios. The remix swaps the new romantic vibe of the original for 8-bit arcade game energy, and calls to mind robotic dance moves and freeze frame video. It's a reboot of a long-lost classic that sounds even better the second time round, and will transport dancers young and old alike onto a timeless dancefloor. Next up for reinterpretation is Luc van Acker and Anna Domino's quirky woodblock and piano-led song "Zanna". Biesmans transforms it from a melancholic anthem to lost love, and into a darkly uplifting discotheque burner, as icy melodies, synth pads and guitar licks create the perfect bed for Anna Domino's plaintive vocals to float on top. As per the other versions, the instrumental dub version follows, and highlights just how Biesmans has built each of these remixes from the ground up, existing as standalone tracks in their own right. Rounding off the 12" Biesmans turns his attention to new wave rock band Scooter and their ode to self-reliance "You", slowing it down slightly to a heavier beat, with hi hat triplets and a touch of Radiophonic Workshop atmosphere. By condensing the original to its essential vocal and synth melodies, Biesmans reconstructs a pumping 130bpm monster, certified to supercharge ravers all through the night. It rounds off a neatly balanced EP that sees Biesmans take the emotional core of influential tracks from his upbringing and put them in a different context, reworking them to share with a whole new generation.
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12"
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RBSSS 004EP
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A holy grail of European electronic dance music, and a classic at the Italian disco scene and Hamburg's Front club alike, is finally available again. Produced in 1984 by two mysterious friends during a hazy studio session in the small town of Aschaffenburg, Germany. "Kairo" is all you want from an oddball record: fun and funky, weird and wonderful. For safety reasons, it includes a persecution-proof instrumental version by Boris Dlugosch as well as the original B-side and completely atheistic "Kosak 2000". And to close with Mark Twain: "Man was made at the end of the week's work, when God was tired."
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12"
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RBSSS 003EP
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Originally released in 1984 during the craze that was called UK electro via Streetwave and later licensed to German omnivore Zyx Records. A joint venture between the electro-funk mastermind, DJ pioneer, and edit maestro Greg Wilson as well as Manchester musicians Martin Jackson and Andy Connell. Or to cite Greg Wilson himself from one of his essays on the subject of UK electro: ''The track that received the best response was 'Music' by Syncbeat, which was full of good vibes and could have easily been re-vamped down the line as a house track." Boris Dlugosch with some interpretations.
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12"
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RBSSS 002EP
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Big in the charts in 1985, the Italian queen of "romantic dance'", Valerie Dore, made her second single "Get Closer" a clairvoyant poem about life and love. Think stonewashed jeans, endless summers on Italian beaches, boats coming back to the shore. Remixed by fellow countrymen Tiger & Woods, "Get Closer" gets sandblasted into modern times and the necessary treatment to be the peak, nighttime hug fest, it's always supposed to be. Add a run out tool by DJ Oyster and a gentle DJ-friendly edit by Gerd Janson of the original to the billboard.
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12"
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RBSSS 001EP
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The first one in a hopefully long-lived series of disco and pop influenced Super Sound Singles on Running Back comes courtesy of the Gibson Brothers. Leaving their biggest wedding hits "Cuba" and "Que Sera Mi Vida" aside, the philanthropic and smile-forcing "Ooh, What A Life" gets an extended edit service by Shan and Gerd Janson, who cut away some of the fat and make it fit for fun on contemporary dancefloors. The flip side sees them remixing and sandpapering "Heaven" into a disco-house interbred (filters and looping mandatory). To quote John Lyndon: "Disco sucks? You never heard that from me."
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