This Ain't Chicago looks back on the club scene in England in the mid to late '80s, when DJs at places like Shoom, Spectrum, The Hacienda and countless warehouse parties were reinterpreting the sounds of acid house coming from Chicago. Years before he made a name for himself with Padded Cell or Bronx Dogs, Sen witnessed this scene as a clubber and a fledgling DJ, and he chronicles his experiences with the upcoming compilation. ''This album features many personal favorites and the tracks were particularly inspirational to me as a DJ and clubber at the time,'' he says. The two-disc, unmixed package features early productions from Baby Ford, Andrew Weatherall, Bizarre Inc. and many others.
A**R
Aciiiiiedd
Brilliant. A handful of known tracks intermingled with some lesser known belters. A slow burner to start with, but will be on rotation after a few listens. A tour de force of squelches, stabs, loops and piano's of a genre never really given proper credit.
M**D
This Aint No Good
This is a collection of house and acid music 1987-1991, from the uk, there is some good music from this era, but this compilation dosent feature it. There are 2 or 3 good sounding Derrick May tracks but the rest of this album is crap.
S**D
So far not so good
It might grow on me but so far I find the tracks odd, unheard of, and nothing special. Suprised I have not heard any of the tracks. A bit boring really!
C**Y
Expertly compiled British acid house collection
Even as a long-time fan of house music, I myself was only previously aware of about a quarter of the tracks on this album. I suspect that this 2CD could only have been put together by someone who worked in a record shop or DJed in the late eighties-early nineties.At first listen I initially thought that the compiler, Richard Sen (who he?), was possibly being too wilfully obscure (we all have records we love but that's not always an excuse to showcase them to others) but I was wrong - there are some real gems on here. M.D.Emm's (Transmat-endorsed, AND an early Joey Negro collaboration to boot) "1666" is one of the better known pieces, as is "Bang Bang You're Mine" by Bang The Party (another UK act to have been honoured by a Transmat release - not this track though). Also familiar to many will be Baby Ford's Mr. Fingers-meets-Mayday "Crashing", as will Annette's "Dream 17" and "Born in the North" by Us - both of which feature (A Guy Called) Gerald Simpson. The importance of these releases cannot be understated today. Whilst the origins of this style of music are generally held to be American, but for the likes of Gerald and Baby Ford re-interpreting the sound and making it more palatable for the UK indie audience, it is in my view entirely possible that dance music may not have taken off in the UK in quite the way it did.Less familiar (to me at any rate) but no less good is Julian Jonah's "Jealousy and Lies": put it this way - you will never listen to Electribe 101 in quite the same way again. Some of these songs might sound a little dated to begin with, but stick with it - repeated play rewards. It's a bit of an acid house history lesson and over the piece the compiler makes it very clear WHY these selections were influential.This 2 disc set is nicely packaged with notes on each and every track and the mastering is pretty decent too.I've found some of the previous Strut Records' compilations to be a little bit laboured and/or worthy in places but this one seems to have been a labour of love by the compiler, as opposed to an exercise in trendier-than-thou dance music egotism, and for that reason it just works on every level for me. Strongly recommended.
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