French Kiss

I've been watching this history of house music documentary in fits and starts over the last couple of weeks, to enliven chores that must be done during pre-bedtime brain-deadening hours on weeknights, which seems appropriate given the repetitive but enlivening nature of the form itself.

I've gotten to late 80s London thus far; the music has moved from Chicago to acid house nights at The Hacienda in "Madchester" to raves in undisclosed London locations.

Then, as if was shot back in time some twenty-four (!) years, my attention snapped to while performing some drudgery (probably laundry) when this track began to accompany the documentary's talking-head remembrances about loads of E and something Paul Oakenfold did.

I'm 90% sure that I heard this for the first time in "the boîte" (club--there was a dude I worked with there who'd ask nearly every week, "Arrrh you goeeeng to the BOITE tonight, mademoiselle?") in France during the summer of 1990. The timing would be right. And the title.



I definitely heard it later, back in Milwaukee in a club (not a "boite," but probably Esoteria). Oh, it moves you around like an insistent, hypnotic sonofabitch--until it becomes a sonofabitch to dance to around the six-minute mark, for reasons that are clear--as well as definite reprise of an earlier, ground-breaking (shaking?) effect that was more integrated into the track itself.

Sunset.

My house/chill/dance/DJ music-listening is essentially anonymous. I reference rarely; the music usually serves a specific purpose: to provide a beat and soundscape for exercise, especially running, or to provide a mood, usually a relaxing one when I don't want to feel or think or remember or project things prompted by lyric-ed and musician-created music.

This is one of my favorite tracks. 



Camiel is a DJ from the Netherlands. Based on this handful of findings and the sheer breadth of free sharing on the intertubes, I could spend a lot of time both on Camiel and other DJ-created music.

Here is another favorite cut:



This has helped me finish pretty much all of the running races I've done since May 2011.

My Heart Says I've Got to Learn to Dream of Brighter Days

I was so engrossed in this week's Reader article about the "second wave" of Chicago house music in the 90s that I looked up every track detailed in it.

Now I know where what I like about contemporary (is that the right subgenrefication?) house comes from.



Divine-voiced singer Dajae was an R&B singer in Chicago when she hooked into the house world. Though it seems she's not moved much beyond being the anonymous voice layered over the much-hyped music (here she notes how the producer gets credit, not the singer),she's still kicking it, and hard.

I'm going to have to find a way to put Chicago house in front of my eye and ear holes this year.