Saturday, June 04, 2005
Motown Remixed
I was thinking of doing a post about this new Motown Remixed comp that just came out anyways, but in a nice coincidence, Soul Sides has a few audio snippets, plus the usual insightful commentary (here specifically).
Go the official site to listen to all the tracks, seemingly in their entirety.
I was skeptical when I heard a few weeks ago that Motown was jumping on the remix compilation bandwagon. (Following Verve, with their Remix series, now up to 3 volumes; and Blue Note, with both their Blue Note Revisited and Madlib's Shades of Blue. A lesser-known precursor to these is the Blue Note Remix Project.) So I'm pleasantly surprised to read Soul Sides opine that this may the most consistent of these compilations.
The tracklisting does look tasty: ?Love redoing "Grapevine", Jazzy Jeff taking on the Tempts (sounds great), Spinna doing an Eddie Kendricks track...
I first heard about this disc via an e-mail that came a couple of weeks ago, promoting a release party that took place in the D last weekend (with the flyer above attached).
The party was just one of hundreds of afterhours in the city last weekend, in what's become a Detroit Memorial Day tradition, what with the 5th installment of an electronic music festival taking place on Hart Plaza (oddly called Fuse-in this year, after originally being DEMF and subsequently Movement.) The Free Press had this article about this year's turnout and this review; check also this link that I've been saving since last June.
Just noticed that the Motown party was at the Johansen in Eastern Market actually--the site of the first of the few Detroit afterhours that Anj and I made it out to. On a frigid night in Feb 2001, we rolled in around 2am, with--unforgetabbly--"Sharevari" booming over the system. We were at the Johansen one other time, the following summer--our first time seeing Theo Parrish spin. That night was also memorable b/c we got to Eastern Market too early (midnight), so we got a bite to eat and listened to some seasoned jazz cats blow next door (what's the name of that joint?).
Update (June 9): Just came across this City Pages review of the Motown disc, plus a couple more remix joints (Curtis Mayfield and Atlantic).
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3 comments:
good to hear about a decent remix project. I feel ike the Verve remixed projects are all completely UN-LISTENABLE, and frankly enjoy the originals much more. Yes, Madlib Shades of Blue is a stone groove...
Funny you say that Johnee! I was going to mention in my original post that we recently picked up the first installment in the Verve series, and I quite like a couple of the tracks. The MJ Cole remix of the Carmen McRae is smooth, and MAW's extended take on See Line Woman is a burner.
(Sad to say I haven't listened to a lot of the originals, but after getting the remix disc I've been meaning to seek them out...which is one of the good things about all these remix albums--hopefully they lead some folks back to the originals.)
And OTOH, I haven't found myself getting into Shades of Blue all that much. This may be heretical, but I'm beginning to think a fair amount of Madlib's output isn't all that...
a quick update: after hearing me go on about it, Anj stopped by the Amoeba in Berkeley last Fri and picked up the Motown remixed disc (as well as a couple other goodies--Plantlife & a mix CD by local selector Sake 1).
the Motown disc sounds good, but i'm a sucka for remixes.
speaking of which, listening to a broken/housey remix of john legend's "ordinary people" right now.
how pissed am i that the august common/de la/john legend show @ the fillmore sold out in 30 min over the weekend??! gotta get us some tickets for that...
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