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A COLLECTION OF CLASSICS
(AZULI)
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Twenty-plus years ago, while doing A&R for Prelude Records and DJing at New York City’s Oubliettes disco, François Kevorkian invented the disco dub mix, which is drawn, as the name implies, from the dub mixes done by Jamaican reggae sound men. Kevorkian’s dub mixes of D Train’s "Keep On" and Sharon Redd’s "Can You Handle It" also mirrored the turntable work then being done live by DJ Larry Levan at the legendary Paradise Garage. Between them, Levan and Kevorkian created a heavily echo-effected, dark rhythmic sound from which house music emerged soon after. On this two-disc set, you’ll find the Kevorkian sound, in his selection and reworking of disco classics from the era of his greatest creativity, songs featuring a deep, dark, often tribal rhythm and voices drenched in sexual heat and ecstasy. Shalamar’s "Right in the Socket," Lenny Williams’s "Choosing You," No Smoke’s intoxicatingly tribal "Koro Koro," and Sharon Redd’s "Can You Handle It" feel absolutely alien to the cold, edgy instrumentals that prevail in most clubs right now, but if you care anything at all for house music at its most soulful, you’ll enjoy hearing these long-ago beloved songs extended and remixed in the 1980-ish Kevorkian manner. Add in such gay disco hot spots as Zulema’s 1973 hit "Giving Up," Keith Barrow’s "Turn Me Up," the Earons’ "Land of Hunger," and Deodato’s "Super Strut" and you’ve got the full picture of the classic François K sound.
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