***guest review by Dan Selzer
I used to hate dance music. I was into weirdcontact Dan:
industrial and guitar noise bands. Dance music was for
guidos and drunk girls. I bought Renegade Soundwave's
Soundclash because it was weird, electronic and on
Mute. I was playing the songs tacked on the end of the
CD at summer camp and this ridiculous dude from like
Staten Island, or Long Island, was like "I love this,
this song is the shit! I used to dance to it all the
time!" I was all like, "no way dude, this is some
weird underground electronic music, not dance music"
and he responded "whatever dude, they play that shit
at the Tunnel all the time." And that's how I learned
to love dance music. Renegade Soundwave did come out
of some wierd post-punk industrial shit, namely 4ad's
pioneering Rema Rema, and had some great weird
pop/dub/industrial minor-hits, but it was the club
bangers in the late 80s/early 90s they're remembered
for. This one, The Phantom, is rightly regarded as
both a "rave classic" and a major influence on Big
Beat. Well don't hold those things against it. It's
just amazing, dubby, spacey, dance music, all
percussion, synth-bass, subtle samples and the iconic
vocals, which I used to think were saying "Till
doomsday, till doomsday, a neon world;" they weren't.
This 12" features the Phantom, it's remix, the dub of
Space Gladiator and the Phantom Turntable Scratch Mix
which shows where RSW was really coming from...the NYC
school of hip-hop influenced house music. I used to
think all that scratching and editing on the Scratch
Mix was amazing until I heard Todd Terry, namely The
Chase by Royal House, which comprises about 60% of
this mix. This 12" also features RSW's usual bizarre
art, and was dedicated to Chuck Yeager. The Phantom,
It's in there....
danselzer@yahoo.com
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