Monday, May 14, 2012

RIP Nitro Deluxe

aka Manny Scretching  (aka Young Manny Scretching Jr)

who I learned only recently used to play in Sun Ra Arkestra before he hooked up with Cutting Records

presumably why he's called KING of the 'NUBIAN' BEAT! on the front of this 12 inch





I've written about the tripped-out vocal science on the "Closet Mission" and "Say Your Love" mixes of "On A Mission" in Energy Flash and elsewhere

it was this track, though, in its various incarnations, that had the IMMENSE impact in 1987-8 



particularly impactful in the UK.... where it made the charts, twice, reaching #47 as "This Brutal House" in February '87, and then #24 almost exactly a year later as "Let's Get Brutal".

Scretching, in tandem with Cutting producer-honcho Aldo Marin, forged a denuded lunar dance sound somewhere between electro and acid house, and paved the way for Forgemasters, Sweet Exorcist, Unique 3, LFO, and the rest of the Northern bleep mafia

cold and hard and cavernous... but also goofy... jaunty and haunting at the same time e.g. the mad vocal-sample as trumpet solo bit that comes in about 5.30 (those "On A Mission" mixes are that to the power of ten: pure phoneme-foam-phantasmogoria)

on this Dub Mix of "Let's Get Brutal"  the vocal wikki-wikki-delia gets wilder still




i think the first version up there is my favorite, but they are all ace







there were  other productions, nothing quite in the same league




and the aforementioned "On A Mission".... YouTube doesn't seem to have the tripped out versions, just the overly spartan main mix


what a week, first Adam Yauch (RIP) and now this...