hump day dance-a-thon

here's a few cuts to keep you going today:

"Hitmaker" by Kiko -- this song killed me the first time i listened to it at a record store listening station, with its classic 80s synth sound, a great beat - kiko got his start by opening up a techno record store, Ozone, in grenoble, and has worked closely with the french tech-house crowd, inclucing the Hacker, Money Penny Project and Oxia. his Midnight Magic full-length is a classic disco-techno album, and all of his productions are marked by his stand-out sound. check your local dance-music record shop or gemm.com to pick up more.

"Electric Renaissance" by Belle and Sebastian -- really this is unlike anything else they've done, a brilliant dance-song, propelled by a joy division-esque bassline and loads of fuzzzzz - this is from Tigermilk, originally released as 1000 vinyl-olny copies by Electric Honey records in 1996, then re-released by the brit jeepster label (1998), then re-re-released a few years back by matador (1999), to much cries of joy by fans, and frustrated chagrin by collectors (original copies of the record were changing hands for upwards of $700!) - the rest of the CD sounds similar to their second and third albums, loaded with sweet-yet-sinister chamber-pop, which i like very much, so pick it up

"The Only Way Is Up" by Yazz and the Plastic Population -- this is a slice of history, early rediculous UK acid-house, with those uplifting vocals and 303 analogue synths - as far as i can tell this is among the first Coldcut productions, and you can certainly hear 'their sound' in this (listen to their Eric B & Rakim remix again after you hear this), and for Yazz (ne Yasamin Summers), they definitely helped, because the song held the #1 spot on the UK charts for 5 weeks. check gemm.com for more of their releases if you're interested.