Boccaccio This is the sound of Belgium

Vinyl available on Magic Feet from 2/6/14

http://www.juno.co.uk/products/rich-lane-peza-flesh/529294-01/

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Written by Ch. Chayell, M. Ickx

Performed and produced by Rich Lane

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In the UK Midlands of late 1988, shortly after the second Summer of Love, a 15 year old schoolboy, already immersed in Acid House and Detroit Techno, reads in one of the pretentious London-centric mags he devours each month about a new sound which could be the next big genre.  It's called New Beat, and it comes, of all places, from Belgium. This makes him pay attention -  he spent every summer holiday of his youth in one of the country's resorts, and had vague memories of stark, pounding electronic music emanating from club doorways late at night.

He makes a trip from his suburban home into the city centre determined to find some examples of this new music. After a lot of searching he comes up trumps: a compilation album called 'New Beat - Take 1'. He buys it on the spot and takes it home to listen to. As with most albums he's ever bought, he feels slightly cheated, after a couple of good tracks there's a fair bit of filler, and certainly no overriding 'sound' other than a somewhat slow and Euro Pop centric approach to House. Nothing like the aural fingerprint of Acid or Techno. But...

Some of the tracks pique his interest. They have a dark, early 80s synth heavy sound which reminds him of both the Synth Pop of his youth, and the mysterious music filtering out of those Belgian clubs as a child...

He has to wait till the very end of the album for the best of these - a track called 'Flesh' by A Split Second. The fascinating sleeve notes of the L.P. tell the story of how an already banging tune in the established Belgian style of 'Electronic Body Music' was played at the wrong speed (33 1/3 and +8 on the Technics deck) by an Antwerp DJ called Fat Ronny. The club went wild, and a new genre was born - Belgian producers trying to replicate the slower groove and dark timbres of this fateful bit of serendipity. The UK schoolboy gets more than a little obsessed by the tune...

The lad in question went on to form a career in dance music production, and after 25 years has decided to revisit this important and very personal piece of nostalgia, fashioning a complete, respectful and sample free rework of the track based on it's 'go slow' speed. 

This one is for the music mad schoolkid in all of us...

R.L.

Rich Lane - Flesh (Dub)

Early 90's oldskool retro techno mix with music from the famous club Boccaccio-Life - Destelbergen - Belgium, mixed by myself.

Boccaccio This is the sound of Belgium

Fabian Minsart