Étienne De Crecy – Super Discount 1
I was 16 when this came out, and it was on constant rotation at house parties, on my walkman on the way to school, on the common-room tape player … it was a big favourite with me and my pals. French house was quite big at the time, with Cassius, Daft Punk and I:Cube, and this had the classic filtered disco sounds with an added dubbiness. I sampled one of the tracks recently for my Jellyman remix of our track Reflections and it made me start listening to the whole LP again. Brings back great memories of school days in ’96!
Fleetwood Mac – Alternate Tusk
I must listen to Rumours more than any other LP, but this is possibly my favourite Fleetwood Mac song. I remember being pretty chuffed to find the 12-inch in a charity shop years ago. I always wanted to do an edit and stretch some of the parts out. The drums are amazing. I think they recorded it with a college football band, and there’s a video on YouTube of the playing it. Such a strange track but totally amazing.
Joe Mensah – Cry Laughter
Everyone’s done that thing where you’re crying and someone tries to cheer you up so you kind of cry and laugh at the same time. It happened to me as a kid when my older brother would take toy-fighting too far, then try to cheer me up so I didn’t run off to my mum. Anyway, I hadn’t heard this before and it’s a very tasty slice of African jazz funk.
Outkast – Elevators
1996 was a good year for music and especially for hip-hop. Outkast’s ATLiens was a seminal record that really put the dirty south on the map. I was aware of the hip-hop scene in Atlanta and down south, but a lot of what I remember was ultra-aggressive, violent stuff with those really bad early photoshop covers of a bunch of crazy-looking guys surrounded by diamond encrusted fonts, money and guns. Outkast were on a different trip all together though. They were making brilliantly crafted modern soul and funk that had the tough southern edge of the Atlanta ghetto (or trap, as they called it down there) but sounded like nothing else. I remember this record took a while to grow on me. It wasn’t as instant as the NYC boom bap stuff I was into but I kept returning to it. By the time Stankonia came out I was hooked on Outkast, and I’m still a huge huge fan of all their records. You can probably buy the original 12-inch of this for dirt cheap on discogs, but if the Record Store Day release opens up young hip-hop fans to their incredible back catalogue then it’s more than welcome.
- Find out more about Record Store Day’s releases, Django Django’s Unreleased Versions and Remixes Vol 1. The band’s album Born Under Saturn is out now on Because Music.
