Nightdubbin'

A new compilation out in May through my long time friends BBE

In the early 80's when I started DJ'ing there was no House, no Techno, no Hip Hop it was all Dance Music. Whether it was Soul, Rock, Pop, Rap, Electronic, Acoustic... it didn't matter as long as a DJ could get his crowd going with it.

At the time most DJ's were residents in clubs, attached and exclusive to a specific venue. They were not traveling the world with a record box as some grew up to do.
Very early on the club owners realised that certain DJs where creating something special, and that was bringing more customers in. It was just not enough to play dance record after dance record. The way it was done would make a big difference.
As the more talented DJs were the biggest crowd pullers, they were exposing their musical selection to a larger audience. Additionally, their expertise in controlling the dancefloor's flow was attracting record labels.
Remixing and thus making songs dancefloor friendly had already started in the late seventies, but it was usually done by the original producers with occasional "consulting" from their DJ friends.
In time labels realised than no one better than a "hot" DJ would be able to create a dancefloor hit. They subsequently offered more DJs to remix music they wanted to succeed in clubs.
The whole dance remix concept was definitely established and DJs became the centerpiece of it. Most of those DJs originated from New York, there were Walther Gibbons, François Kevorkian, Larry Levan, Paul Simpson, M&M, Tee Scott, John Luongo, Richie Rivera...to name but a few.

In those early times of remixing, record labels would pick a song, a DJ, put him in a recording studio with an audio engineer, and hand them the tape of the original multitrack recording.
Under the direction of the DJ, the engineer would use his technical mastery to emphasize certain elements of the recording, re-arranging it by mixing them differently (hence the word re-mix) creating in the process, a fresh sounding version.
Most recordings were initially done at the length of the album (rather short) versions. As the DJ would want longer pieces that would lock dancers into a groove, certain parts of the song would be repeatedly recorded onto another tape, with different mixing arrangements of each pass. Then the tape with those multiple passes would be edited to achieve a longer seemingly seamless climatic progression.
Using that technique a 3 minute recording could be turned into a 7 minute or more version without the untrained ear noticing any repeats.

As the DJs and engineers skills and techniques progressed in creating Club oriented mixes, so did the studio equipment. The 1980s saw the advent of the first drum machines, digital equipment that could "sample" short pieces of audio to be replayed at will, echo machines and many other sound tweaking devices.
A remix session was a great opportunity for engineers to experiment with new gear and effects that could have been too "wild" for standard mixes. At their side, the DJs were learning. And fast !

After a few years of mastering the art of remixing and extending album versions into dancefloor monsters, the DJs felt the need to expand their creativity and push the genre further.
Once they had completed an effective remix that featured the body of the original song, typically its vocal section, it was time to get wilder.
From what used to be a plain instrumental version of the remix, they built up, adding extra effects, editing new sections in, adding percussion and anything that could bring excitement.
Since their comissioned job was done with the vocal version, they had a no holds barred approach to what would come to be known as the "Dub mix"
Although there had been Jamaican Dub mixes before, the variety of styles of music the New York DJs were applying the process to made the outcome quite different and a genre of its own.

This genre has become very influential over the years to DJs as much as producers and even sound engineers, It has been somewhat absorbed by Dance music as we've been knowing it for a while and it has become quite unescapable for any club cut to have its associated dub. Current acts like Metro Area, Chicken Lips, Todd Terje and to a certain extent the new wave of 80's influenced artists like Ladyhawke or even Justice owe all a little something to those original dubbed out sounds.

Nightdubbin' is a triple CD compilation that focuses on early Dance music Dub mixes from the late 70's to the mid 80's. There have been many of them, tucked on the b-side of vinyl 12" singles and this a personal selection of the most creative ones. To my knowledge none of these versions have been available on CD before

CD 1 & 2 features the unaltered Dub versions with a brand new exclusive mix of Imagination's classic "Changes".
CD 3 features a continuous DJ mix. Done by my friends, UK duo The Idjut Boys. I've handed them the task of further dubbing things out, as their expertise in that field is unparalleled.

Lastly Nightdubbin' will also feature a foreword by dub master François Kevorkian, as well as extensive interviews of him alongside remixers Paul Simpson and John Morales. All three of them having their work strongly featured in the project

full track listing to follow soon

DFP