Moodymann - J.A.N. A record that changed my life.
If asked to pick one track, just one track, that is responsible for my love of techno and house music (and, as a result, disco, soul, hip-hop and more), it would be this. I can still remember fairly vividly the first time I heard it. At the time I was rather lost musically; and, as a matter of fact, emotionally. I’d very much wanted to leave behind the dull and languid indie / rock / singer-songwriter sounds of my teens (incidentally, I have since discovered amazing music from these genres, it’s just that back then all I had to listen to was music like the insufferable Damien Rice), for something with a little more life and soul and had been attending a lot of parties on the Manchester student scene, which was then dominated by that really noisy French electro-house (now replaced by that really noisy UK? (I hope) fad (Dubstep)). Anyway, in the midst of all this, an older friend gave me some mix CDs of sets from The Detroit Electronic Music Festival; one of which, the first I listened to, was from the underrated Marc Leclair (Akufen / Horror Inc) who, two tracks in, played this record. Long story short, as soon as I heard that groove, those Hitchcockian strings and that spoken word sample (from an Electrifyin Mojo’s interview with Prince in the 80s) something changed inside of me and I’ve not been the same since.
(Source: youtube.com)
