HARD TO FIND - VARIOUS ARTISTS
LABEL: NEW STATE MUSIC // RELEASE DATE: 18.08.11
BUY LINK: http://bit.ly/HTF_Preorder
Hard To Find is a brand new compilation series bringing together great and lost remixes from old 12” vinyl collections and CD singles (remember them?) gone by, that are…well…hard to find. If you consider yourself a trainspotter or a lover of quality music then this series is most
definitely for you. DJ historian and journalist extraordinaire Bill Brewster writes the sleeve notes for the release and explains the concept behind the album…
‘With Hard To Find, we’ve sent our vinyl archaeologists to sift through the wreckage of acid house, throwing aside the Alison Limerick double packs and long-forgotten Shamen promos to bring you the gold (the only fool’s gold we’d permit would be by Stone Roses). But not only are these the very best of the remixes from the most creative period of house music, we like to think they define it, too. As if that weren’t sufficient, many of them have never been made available on CD before.’
Spread over two CDs, Hard To Find features cherished tunes from years gone by, without which the new breed of today would have struggled for inspiration. For anyone who grew up listening to Jeff Young’s Big Beat and Pete Tong’s Essential Selection from the late 80’s through to the 90s and beyond, or Annie Nightingale’s Sunday night request show, this album is for you. Also appealing to the new generation, those who tune into Annie Mac, Zane Lowe and Nick Grimshaw today, will find this compilation full of many previously buried treasures. CD1 opens with Underworld’s mix of William Orbit’s ‘Water From a Line Leaf’, the album goes on to feature remixes from the likes of: Arthur Baker and his re-rub of Neneh Cherry’s ‘Buffalo Stance’; Norman Cook; Andrew Weatherall; Renegade Soundwave and Ben Liebrand; closing with Trevor Horn’s remix of ABC ‘The Look of Love’, taking things right back to the earliest days of the post disco era remix, something the likes of Greg Wilson would love to play out and throw the odd acappella over. CD2 continues the hard to find journey with Norman Cook’s Independence Mix of A Tribe Called Quest ‘I Left My Wallet in El Segundo’, followed by some great mixes from the US by Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley‘, E-Smoove, Todd Terry, and David Morales before it’s back to Europe with The Chemical Brothers, Sasha, Leftfield, and the Glimmers, ending on another Trevor Horn classic, and one of the acts who pioneered the art of remixing, Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Bill goes onto say… ‘Listen to Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley’s brilliant re-rub of ‘Something Got Me Started’ and I am transported happily back to the Ministry of Sound circa 1992 as the main room reverberates to one of Hurley’s finest moments. Sheena Easton’s ‘101’, written by Prince and remixed by David Morales (arguably his first truly great remix), was a bona fide Sound Factory classic and a tune that Junior Vasquez would work for ages, using two copies: twenty two years old and still sounding mindblowingly great. What’s notable about many of the mixes included here is how varied the tempos are. When acid house first arrived – lest we forget – there were many styles and tempos played, something that had been almost entirely eradicated by the late 1990s, when we were subjected to an endless array of 125bpm house mixes. Andrew Weatherall, whose remixes have lasted so much better than most, weighs in here with a pair of languid beauties in the shape of St Etienne’s uber Balearic ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’ and his mix of the Grid’s ‘Floatation’. Norman Cook’s reworked ‘I Left My Wallet In El Segundo’ by A Tribe Called Quest, still sounding fresh and low today or It’s Immaterial’s ‘Driving Away From Home’, one of those quirky pop records championed on the Balearic beats scene and revived to devastating effect (it somehow sounded as good in dingy dungeons in London as it did in the open air at Ibiza’s Amnesia). And any compilation of this heft would be bereft without the inclusion of the Beloved who, in the space of a few visits to Shoom, went from indie kids to blissed-out Summer of Love. So there you have it. A collection of Hard To Find tracks ready to be rediscovered and found by old and new generations to come. Hard to Find will be available both as a 2CD package and digital release.
