Sunday 24 June 2018

Heating Up

Luke Chueh - The Soundtrack (To My Life) (2004)


It's a heatwave in the UK and the footy's on the telly, and England's currently winning to boot so you can bet everyone's going to go a bit mental. So I thought I'd break trend and get a little more upbeat with my selections, a particularly nostalgia fuelled one at that. I've held off on putting this one up for a while but I think it's high time it makes an appearance. Despite being made for an in-game radio station (and one that was a parody of turn of the millennium pop at that) with a made-up and slightly crass artist name, Stripe Summer is legitimately a really good garage song. I will wholly admit that the nostalgia's a big part of that, but I will always have a soft spot for this sound.



I can't talk nostalgia and the like without an honourable shout-out to the tune that helped land me this writing gig in the fist place. Paul Rayner's Feel Me is of a unique breed of house that was all over the place when I was a young 'un, you'll find all sorts of names for it, from Organ House to simply Bassline. There's a pretty in depth tale about the tune and how I came into possession of this copy,which you can read in the comment section over on this post. We spent many a night listening to this and tunes like it loitering in car parks in beat up hatchbacks, I make sure to give it a spin every summer or so to have a bit of a wistful look back.



And just to complete the nostalgia trifecta, a lil' bit more vocal garage courtesy of Artful Dodger. Again back at the turn of 2000 you couldn't have a radio on without this or Modjo, or Stardust or any other number of one-off dance hits making an appearance. I will standby and say that twinkly synth is still gorgeous, and the vocal has aged pretty well all things considered, though I feel that goes for a lot of vocal house tunes. Looking back it doesn't have quite as much variation as I would have liked but then again, it's a radio-friendly single so it was never going to push any boundaries.



I hope you all liked this little timewarp back a good 17/18 years or so, I'll be back same time next week with more of the usual. As usual make sure you all stay safe, and enjoy the music.

-Claude Van Foxbat

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