On Saturday I found a CD I thought I'd never see again. As usual, I stumbled across it without especially looking for it - I was literally down on my knees to assess the contents of the dusty bottom shelves of the shop - I blinked curiously at the spine, wondering where I might have seen it before, and when I pulled it out it took me a little while to work out what it was, whereupon I uttered a silent gasp.
You see, this compilation, prepared and released by Latin House DJ/lawyer John Armstrong in 1999, I had bought back then following an astonishing DJ mix set which Armstrong performed on the John Peel s how. The idea of Revolucion was to illustrate the wide array of styles then coming to roost under the general roof of Latin House, from its origins to its future. It was and is one of the most immensely danceable of all albums, but then, as you know, things happened in 2001 and I didn't want to dance anymore and couldn't envisage ever dancing again, so I let it go. Inevitably it drifted out of print (probably was out of print by 2001) and so it became a ghost for the next seven years; something I recalled with increasing vagueness but there was also a subtly increasing urge to have and hear it again. I've no idea whether this copy I've now found is the exact same copy I sold to the exact same branch of MVE back then, but the important thing (and something that you do not get from Amazon or ebay or the chainstores) was the serendipity of finding it again now, at a time when I most assuredly am dancing again, as if it were too waiting for my ghosts to subside and settle into history.
It still sounds remarkable and hugely danceable. I note the general tone of local pride - vital when you consider the decades/centuries of shit that the Puerto Ricans havev had to go through - in things like "Todo Puerto Rico" by the Bad Boy Orchestra (the same writer/producer responsible for 2 In A Room, who also appear on the compilation, a very long way from "Wiggle It"). Nuevo merengue band Fulanito are explosively brilliant, Public Enemy with accordions; their "Guallando" fulfills fhe fantasy of where the electro-merengue track on Duck Rock might have led.
But "Hoja En Blanco" by seemingly squeaky clean Santa Domingo boy/girl duo Monchy y Alexandra remains its most remarkable track. In his sleevenote Armstrong refers to the song as a harbinger of "bachata house" - bachata being a form of Latin song structured somewhere between bolero and blues - "a completely new style that's my tip for Latin's cutting edge this summer." The poignancy of hindsight.
It still sounds like nothing else ever, and yet like a lot of things thrown together in an Argos blender. It begins with huge, gory rave raspberries and beats as a maniacal voice yells out "grossio millennio - check it out!" Fuzzed Eno synth wobbles mixes with Nigerian hi-life guitar with the swift addition of an arsenal of live Latin percussion (always Latin House's vital heartbeat); the same maniacal voice yells in a halfway house between Rachid Taha and Joe Strummer and then the most elegant and graceful of bachata ballads (but still with the propulsive beat) makes its entry, the guitar/rhythm relations now closer to Cuba. The song plays fairly straight until the beats begin to gather gradual intensity again and suddenly (on the hinge of "hasta la LU-na!") we are back in 2 Unlimited on steroids territory, pinball whizzes, screams (especially the one at 2:29-2:30). Vintage avant-rave anti-chords ricochet at 1000 bpm while a frantic Abbott and Costello rap exchange skids into being, streaking across a nailbed of staccato consonants. Finally it's back to the central song, again sung and performed beautifully, before the rave coda adds a gasometer blink of a full stop. I'd love to think what might have happened if this had topped global charts rather than "Macarena" - but these 15 tracks are among the most vital you can listen and dance to in this age, a decade on...a lifetime on...and it's time, thankfully, to dance again.
You see, this compilation, prepared and released by Latin House DJ/lawyer John Armstrong in 1999, I had bought back then following an astonishing DJ mix set which Armstrong performed on the John Peel s how. The idea of Revolucion was to illustrate the wide array of styles then coming to roost under the general roof of Latin House, from its origins to its future. It was and is one of the most immensely danceable of all albums, but then, as you know, things happened in 2001 and I didn't want to dance anymore and couldn't envisage ever dancing again, so I let it go. Inevitably it drifted out of print (probably was out of print by 2001) and so it became a ghost for the next seven years; something I recalled with increasing vagueness but there was also a subtly increasing urge to have and hear it again. I've no idea whether this copy I've now found is the exact same copy I sold to the exact same branch of MVE back then, but the important thing (and something that you do not get from Amazon or ebay or the chainstores) was the serendipity of finding it again now, at a time when I most assuredly am dancing again, as if it were too waiting for my ghosts to subside and settle into history.
It still sounds remarkable and hugely danceable. I note the general tone of local pride - vital when you consider the decades/centuries of shit that the Puerto Ricans havev had to go through - in things like "Todo Puerto Rico" by the Bad Boy Orchestra (the same writer/producer responsible for 2 In A Room, who also appear on the compilation, a very long way from "Wiggle It"). Nuevo merengue band Fulanito are explosively brilliant, Public Enemy with accordions; their "Guallando" fulfills fhe fantasy of where the electro-merengue track on Duck Rock might have led.
But "Hoja En Blanco" by seemingly squeaky clean Santa Domingo boy/girl duo Monchy y Alexandra remains its most remarkable track. In his sleevenote Armstrong refers to the song as a harbinger of "bachata house" - bachata being a form of Latin song structured somewhere between bolero and blues - "a completely new style that's my tip for Latin's cutting edge this summer." The poignancy of hindsight.
It still sounds like nothing else ever, and yet like a lot of things thrown together in an Argos blender. It begins with huge, gory rave raspberries and beats as a maniacal voice yells out "grossio millennio - check it out!" Fuzzed Eno synth wobbles mixes with Nigerian hi-life guitar with the swift addition of an arsenal of live Latin percussion (always Latin House's vital heartbeat); the same maniacal voice yells in a halfway house between Rachid Taha and Joe Strummer and then the most elegant and graceful of bachata ballads (but still with the propulsive beat) makes its entry, the guitar/rhythm relations now closer to Cuba. The song plays fairly straight until the beats begin to gather gradual intensity again and suddenly (on the hinge of "hasta la LU-na!") we are back in 2 Unlimited on steroids territory, pinball whizzes, screams (especially the one at 2:29-2:30). Vintage avant-rave anti-chords ricochet at 1000 bpm while a frantic Abbott and Costello rap exchange skids into being, streaking across a nailbed of staccato consonants. Finally it's back to the central song, again sung and performed beautifully, before the rave coda adds a gasometer blink of a full stop. I'd love to think what might have happened if this had topped global charts rather than "Macarena" - but these 15 tracks are among the most vital you can listen and dance to in this age, a decade on...a lifetime on...and it's time, thankfully, to dance again.
