Dropping in on the Organic Grooves and Giant Step parties in New York between 1994 and 1996 was a kind of through-the-looking glass experience. Sometimes you’d be in a big, classy nightclub, and sometimes in a pub with horrid sticky carpets. Regardless, dreads –black and white – were everywhere, and there was almost always live accompaniment to the DJ, at least congas, sometimes guitar and vocals. Hippie alarms immediately.
And then you’d cock an ear. Hip hop. Deconstructed, the best bits looping, the lyrics turned into accents, the accents and the groove totally repositioned. Dancing was unavoidable. And then they’d ambush you. The groove would get edgier, and they’d drop Da Funk (to the hip hop kids, James Murphy!). The tempo would gradually rise, and in would come ‘Peg’ by Steely Dan. And the roof was off. It was a big collective, and
Sasha was just one part of it, one angle. But he went off and formed Codek Records, the most underrated dance label of the turn of the century, and later In Flagranti, whom everyone loves to this day. So it’s clear that some part of that magic was his, and I’m granting it to him here. He slept on my couch in 1999 in San Francisco, which is both the world’s most obscure humblebrag and an admission that this kind of analysis is always personal (even though I never ‘knew’ Sasha, really). But he’s been a dance music magician for almost 20 years now – so no apology is necessary.
http://soundcloud.com/inflagranti
No comments:
Post a Comment