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I haven’t played this record in over 23+ years. When I put this record on the deck last night, I was shocked at how bad the sound-quality was. The bad sound wasn’t from the result of degradation of the vinyl over the years. In fact, the record is still in MINT condition. But the bad quality came from the original recording of either the original tape-master itself and/or the pressing. The sound sounded like a low-resolution MP3. UNACCEPTABLE! By today’s standards, of course.
Then all a sudden –like an enormous & powerful flashback shooting out like a bullet from the back area of my deepest recessed memory, fully taking over all my five senses– the Spirit of Vinyl-Past sucked me into a worm-hole and travelled me back in time to the year 1986… to the same exact point of day and time as to when I bought Electro-15 record from a store in London or Uxbridge … went home and played it for the first time… but upon my first impression after listening to it, I had actually thought back then about the recording quality sounding awfully worse than all of the previous Electro releases. Disappointed then. Disappointed now even.
However……. now……… I just love how last night was like listening to Electro-15 for the first time again >> but this time with a genuine worm-hole-deja-vouz. Surreal!
Only this time I was blessed to do quick EQing, compressing, reverbing and simple mastering to the overall sound to an acceptable & reasonable state of being compatible to the 12st Century human ears.
With my dirty-hands, I accentuated the ghetto beefness … I widened the stereo-field … I brightened the upper end … I added some depth with room-dimensions via Lexicon reverb (with careful programming of all parameters; no presets were chosen! And, as a matter of fact, every Electro recording of mine has different reverb-settings which I’d programmed each very meticulously) … I left-alone some of the record’s dirt & scratches … and, most importantly, I wanted the sound/feeling of an actual vinyl-record to be pushed-in-your-face for the meditative experience of listening-purposes (which might be great to expose the new generation of listeners/collectors to what it really and SHOULD HAVE sounded like for them back then). The GRIT just had to stay!
I could have mastered Electro-15 so clean like a digital CD-master, without anybody else being able to tell the difference between whether the recording coming from a vinyl or not. But that would be no fun. HELL NO! >>>>> I like sticking it in to ya: RAW BEEF sound with my own STAMP on it.
StreetSounds Electro-15 (Side A)…
Title: Electro-15 (Side A)
Mixed by: Herbie ‘Mastermind’ Laidley
Year: 1986
Label: StreetSounds
Media Source: Recorded straight from 12-inch record to enhanced digital.
StreetSounds Electro-15 (Side A) (mp3)
Tracklisting
- A1: Duke Bootee – “Broadway”
Produced by Duke Bootee - A2: Skinny Boys – “Awesome”
Produced by Mark Bush - A3: Kurtis Blow - “The Bronx”
Produced by Kurtis Blow - A4: DJ Scott La Rock, Blastmaster KRS One & D-Nice – “South Bronx”
Produced by Boogie Down Productions
StreetSounds Electro-15 (Side B)…
Title: Electro-15 (Side B)
Mixed by: Herbie ‘Mastermind’ Laidley
Year: 1986
Label: StreetSounds
Media Source: Recorded straight from 12-inch record to enhanced digital.
StreetSounds Electro-15 (Side B) (mp3)
Tracklisting
- B1: Just-Ice - “Cold Gettin’ Dumb”
Produced by The Lord High Ruler & Emperor Of The Beat - B2: Faze One – “Layin’ Down A Beat” (Censored Version)
Produced by Dave Ogrin - B3: The Move - “Greedy Girls” (Extended Version)
Produced by Cozmo D, Chilly B, The Move - B4: Captain Rock – “Bongo Beat”
Produced by Taharqa Aleem & Tunde-Ra Aleem
While the norm for most tracks go anywhere between 3:30 to 6:00 minutes in length, I prefer 15:00 minutes or longer, like the four seasons. Give me 4 long tracks to fill the hour, and I’ll be one very happy Iraqi. I love tracks that take me on long journeys through various movements. One of my all-time favorite synth-pop groups is PROPAGANDA from germany … who sound like twisted ABBA + Industrial + TechnoPop + Darkness. My favorite Proganda track is P:Machinery. I’ve taken two 12-inch vinyl versions of that track and conjoined them together as one … the way I want to listen to P:Machinery by:
Propaganda
Although he produced only a handful of tracks of renown and disappeared into obscurity almost as quickly as he had emerged from it, Manny ( Man ) Parrish is nonetheless one of the most important and influential figures in American electronic dance music. Helping to lay the foundation of electro, hip-hop, freestyle, and techno, as well as the dozens of subgenres to splinter off from those, Parrish introduced the aesthetic of European electronic pop to the American club scene by combining the plugged-in disco-funk of Giorgio Moroder and the man-machine music of Kraftwerk with the beefed-up rhythms and cut’n'mix approach of nascent hip-hop. As a result, tracks like “Hip-Hop Be Bop (Don’t Stop)” and “Boogie Down Bronx” were period-defining works that provided the basic genetic material for everyone from Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys to Autechre and Andrea Parker — and they remain undisputed classics of early hip-hop and electro to this day.
Man Parrish
What made Trevor Horn’s productions stand out was his unique and genius production techniques and the heavy use of state-of-the-art pro-audio gear, which made him become the torch-bearer for the kind of technology-led pop music which was hip and incredibly disciplined. Trevor Horn’s 12-inch remixes were uniquely long (anywhere from 8 to 13 minutes in duration) and told stories which took the listeners through long instrumental journeys at the begenning of tracks until the climax is reached (around the 5/6 or 7 minute mark). After the climax, the original or alternate full vocal version of the track takes over from that point on to the end, lasting additional 3.5 to 5 minutes in length.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Trevor Horn is the guy who produced and performed “
The Buggles
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