Wednesday 30 December 2009

00Deep - A Review Of The Decade - 2005

Halfway through the decade, and it seemed like house music was flagging somewhat, NRK had decided to rest up any DJ mix compilation series largely due to a rapidly declining market, and concentrate more on single releases. And any doubts about house music's future were swiftly dashed, as NRK put the A&R work into overdrive, and signed up what are possibly the most important house tunes of the noughties ...

Kerri Chandler, a long respected member of the house scene, came up with such a huge house bomb in 2005. Originally released on legendary US label King Street Sounds, and picked up by NRK for re-release, "Bar A Thym" was such a simple track, yet hugely effective and influential. It's marriage of precision drums, funky cowbell percussions, and almost rave like stabs, produced a track that was absolutley caned the world over by house DJs and techno DJs alike. NRK treated the project with care, and enlisted Tom Middleton to remix the track, and in doing so, created one of those remix beasts where the remix is just as hot as the original mix; Middleton turned out a huge deep house track that works every time it's played. Another version of "Bar A Thym" was released with Foremost Poets laying down some spoken words, and producing a very worthy alternate remix.



One huge tune in a year is every labels dream, but to score two.......step forward another US house producer, this time it was Quentin Harris and his mammoth "Let's Be Young" track that NRK picked up on. Originally out on UA Records, this string laden, 10 minute epic track was the sound of 2005, part garage, part techno, it had all the elements to get DJs of all persuasions salivating. Parisian Julien Jabre and Trackheadz ably remixed the unremixable, and "Let's Be Young" can still be heard out every weekend all over the world, still scoring the same euphoric reactions time and time again.



Also in 2005, NRk found time to release records from former H-Foundation fella, Hipp-E (with his deep-ass "Psych-Delics" trilogy), Rulers Of The Deep's "The Last Survivor" with it's crucial Buick Project remix (AKA Nic Fanciulli & Andy Chatterley), more musical goodness from Magik Johnson ("Follow The Groove", "Rollergirl") and Peace Division's minimal tech funkness on two EPs, "Poke" and the mighty "Club Therapy".

2005 was also the year that NRK celebrated 100 single releases, and issued a couple of special 10" vinyls to commemorate the occasion. NRK100 "The Remixes" and NRK100 "The Edits" brought together some of our favourite tracks and remixers; step forward Pete Heller, Sirus, Joey Negro, Miguel Migs, Nick Holder, Magik J). We also decided to go rummaging in the vaults, and released the ReMasters 12" series and triple CD album, literally re-mastering some of the finest moments of the last 100 releases and sonically dragging them into the noughties .

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