#2000's dance

Misstress Barbara - “For All There’s Left” Relentless Beats Vol. 1 by Misstress Barbara Song released in 2000. Mix released in 2001. Tribal Techno

***Song starts at 5:43 and ends at 9:11***

The Italian-born, Montréal-residing Misstress Barbara (which is a portmanteau of "Miss" and "stress" to reflect her overactive, perfectionist nature and not really a dominatrix thing, if that's what you're thinking) has been steady on her dance music grind since the mid-90s. And while she's a beloved DJ who really wants nothing more than to play her sets according to whatever her personal tastes are at that point in time, as well as a Juno-nominated producer and singer (it's like a Canadian Grammy), the thing that she was most prominently known for at the beginning of her career was techno, plain and simple; both her ability to spin it in order to work a crowd into a frenzy, and her ability to make it.

And in 1999, Barbara landed a 12-inch on Swede Christian Smith's Tronic label, a then small-time outlet that specialized in the wall-vibrating, tribal style of the music. That same year, she launched her own label, Relentless, through which she released her own same type of records, and in '01 she brought her hard-nosed mixing talents to the venerated Moonshine Music, for which she made a fantastic and perfectly titled set called Relentless Beats, Vol. 1.

Like any self-respecting DJ, on that mix Barbara included some of her personal favorite cuts and sprinkled in some of her own material as well. And one of those tracks of hers that appeared on that mix was a blistering piece of tribalism, which was originally released the prior year on a 12-inch EP for Relentless called For All There's Left.

This track is really just a lovely, rhythmically primal assault of sorts. Misstress Barbara uses a heavy, pulsating 4/4 kick drum and rumbling, bonging sinister bass as her foundation and then proceeds to pile a packed stack of tightly woven percussive rhythms on top, making for a thickly layered brain masher of a track. Clapping, resonant rimshots(?) lead the way as they're soon sandwiched between a hot spring of rustling hi-hats and then a soft hand drum rhythm that runs alongside the bottom. But while she's got more than enough to make for a satisfying track at that point, Barbara still has even more rhythms in the tank to mix in and out in order to keep us on our toes.

Miguel Migs - “Infectious Groove” NRK Singles Collection III by Nick Harris & Redg ‘NRK’ Weeks Song released in 2000. Mix released in 2001. Deep House

Miguel Migs is really one of the greatest deep house producers to have ever hailed from America's west coast. Although his first foray into music was actually as a guitarist in a reggae/dub band, he was someone who had always kept an open mind and had an eclectic taste, and that eventually led to his exposure to deep house music.

Migs' first release as a deep house artist would come in '98, and in '99 he would gain notoriety under the moniker of Petalpusher on one of the genre's stalwart labels, Naked Music Recordings. And around that same time, he released a string of records through a bunch of other labels, too, including the UK's NRK Sound Division, which released one of his greatest triumphs in 2000, Inner Excursions EP.

It's on Inner Excursions that you'll find what is arguably Migs' greatest song, "Petalpushing," but the whole record's fantastic, and when NRK's two co-founders, Nick Harris and Redg Weeks, made a mix for the third installment in their NRK Singles Collection series, they lined up "Petalpushing" and another song from that Inner Excursions EP, "Infectious Groove," back-to-back.

Now, "Infectious Groove" certainly doesn't hold the same level of timeless warmth that "Petalpushing" does, but it's still a sweet, chilled-house party extender-type of tune from the turn-of-the-century, and it feels a bit overlooked considering the track that it sits in the shadow of. In comparison, "Infectious Groove" is understated, but it has a really nice underbelly, with a kick-snare-hi-hat backbeat that's paired up with some interplay between burblingly muffled, acidic bass stabs and soft zapping. And if you listen closely enough, way beneath those alternatingly reverbed and whispered vocals of "infectious" and "it's the music" that ride atop, you can hear a subtle use of ringing xylophone, too. And once you hear that little piece, it becomes very noticeable and then feels like an indispensable ingregient, and it makes you realize that little touches like these, that aren't so easy to suss out upon an initial listen, are partially what make Migs such a good producer, and why this track is worth writing about and paying attention to two-plus decades after it was first released.

Phantom Beats - “Rumbler” Collectivism 2000 Breakbeat

Phantom Beats were a highly successful breaks and breakbeat duo from Cardiff, Wales. Consisting of Matt Callahan and Neil Cocker, the pair strung together a good bunch of singles between 2000 and 2004 and released a handful of mixes, too. They were ranked as top breaks and breakbeat DJs in the UK for the few years that they were around and played alongside Fatboy Slim and The Chemical Brothers. Phantom Beats also played a set for BBC Radio. Cocker, who’s since gone on to become a successful entrepreneurial tech start-up guy, co-founded the Plastic Raygun label, which played host to popular acts like The Propellerheads and Bentley Rhythm Ace. Phantom Beats also somehow managed to record a song with famous maker of model buses, Boris Johnson. 

In 2000, a track by Phantom Beats called “Rumbler” appeared on a super rare electronic comp, Collectivism (I had to put an alert on my Discogs account to buy it because when I first discovered that it existed, not a single person was selling it), which was released by the instantly ephemeral label, Raya. As stated on their still somehow currently existing website, “Raya are a collective of film-makers, designers, visual artists, DJs and musicians whose critically acclaimed festival and club events have brought a little bit of street culture into gallery spaces and a little bit of gallery culture into club-land.” Neat idea of some class mixing at work there.

Anyhoo, “Rumbler”’s a cool tune because it’s like a sweet hybrid of punchy, distorted breakbeat with a lot of wickedly subterranean drum-n-bass-and-electro sub-bass to go along with it. As the foundational drum break smacks with scratchiness and the sub-bass takes on a bit of a squelchy character, the song wanders pretty unpredictably, adding percussive tweaks here and there, and continues to build on itself while also making room for some intermittent patches of deconstruction. However, just when you think to yourself, “this is all actually getting just a wee bit monotonous,” Callahan and Cocker go ahead and drop the string synths on it, transforming the track for the back half, which also ends up lending some unexpected emotional depth to it, too. Awesome track.

Today’s mix:

I Love Techno 10 by T-Quest 2000 Techno

Listen to the full mix here.

This mix is twenty years and one week old today and it’s a rundown of some of the best techno that came out in the first ten months of the year 2000. “Love Story” by Andrew McLauchlan is an absolute one-hit wonder bop with Brazilian flavor (I’ve posted it before) and the Josh Wink / Lil’ Louis track repackages Lil Louis’ 1989 classic, “French Kiss,” for the new millennium, with Wink doing some superb Winkian stuff. A sampling of the songs that made the floors quake just a little over 20 years ago. Transport yourself back to 2000 with this one.

Highlights:

Highland - “No Way Out (Highland mix)” Perfecto Presents Another World by Paul Oakenfold 2000 Progressive House

Highland was a short-lived trance and progressive house trio from Australia who, during their tenure, released a total of eight records between 1999 and 2001. Their most popular record was No Way Out, a vocal piece featuring a totally unknown singer named Barbara Frater. The track received extra attention from clubbers and DJs alike when it was included on Paul Oakenfold’s Perfecto Presents Another World double mix in 2000.

As a calmly embittered Frater resigns herself to being trapped in a bad relationship, Highland complement her with a great sequence of well-layered peaks, valleys, and plateaus. Starting with a tribal drum rhythm, they slowly build by combining a 4/4 kick, hi-hat hiss, atmospheric ambient synths, and a fun, jutting melody of acid. With the song’s second ascension, they provide a little more texture by infusing a couple sets of fluttering and shimmering keyboard stabs, and on the final plateau, yet another melody of acid synths is added into the mix, further complicating the track by unleashing two separate lead melodies that play in tandem.

The Funk Lab - “Smoke Marijuana” ElectroAcidFunk, Volume 3 by DJ Voodoo 2000 Florida Breaks

***Song starts at 24:57 and ends at 32:13***

As music technology rapidly advanced throughout the 90s, a new style of electronic music appeared to emerge at a rate of what seemed like every few weeks. A lot of these newfangled styles reflected a fusion of previously established genres, but perhaps none of these attempts at fusion were as unique as the Florida breaks scene, which mixed electro, Miami bass music, hip hop, and jazz and funk breaks, and freestyle. Originating in Orlando in the 80s, the Florida breaks sound would reach its peak in the mid-to-late 90s, and by the early 2000s, trail off into irrelevancy.

One of the dopest Florida breaks groups, The Funk Lab, came on the scene in 1997, and although they’re not listed as one of the top providers of the Florida breaks sound in the style’s Wikipedia article, they sure as shit should be. In 2000, they contributed an exclusive track called “Smoke Marijuana” to ElectroAcidFunk, Volume 3, a mix by a southern DJ named DJ Voodoo.

“Smoke Marijuana” is a high-powered and impressively layered dance groove. It has a roving and rumbling bass hum, drum breaks and 808 drums, aquatically acidic and crystalline chiming synth shards, and electro-funk keys. It’s also sample heavy, and with all these chopped up and looped vocals that both play on top of and in between all these elements, The Funk Lab are able to build a groove, ride it, deconstruct it, and bring it back in full force as they constantly tinker with the inclusion and exclusion of certain sounds to keep us on our toes as we groove along. The result is a great blend of electro, Miami bass, and breaks that, when combined, uniquely screams “Florida”.