In mijn ogen zeker één van de allersterkste dance 12 inches uitgebracht dit, ook mede vanwege de sterke B-kant. Muziek draait om beleving en het gevoel dat ik bij deze nummers krijg gaat wel ver. Erg enerverende nummers die je kunnen opslokken. Hier een stukje erover.
Considered the earliest Acid House tune ever, "Acid Tracks" story begins with the friendship of two friends which later were behind Phuture - DJ Pierre and Earl Spanky Smith. Very close to each other since the high school, they grew up together in a very strong musical environment, until a day when DJ Pierre got surprised by his friend Spanky when he came on his house while he was DJing and told something like "Hey, I bought a drum machine, it's time to produce!", back in 1984.
Since Earl Smith had a job, he could afford the expensive equipments necessary to do it. But at the first moment, it was just a Drum Machine, which made them do drum solos - cleverly used by Pierre on his DJ sets. Earl Spanky had a natural hability with kicks, snares & hi-hats, so he quickly turned himself into an amazing drum line maker.
One day, Earl Spanky bought a Roland 303 acid bassline, and they both tried with their friend Herbert J to manipulate those sounds, and that acid loop seemed to be already there, but at that time they really did not know yet how to create different ones. "We didn't know how to program. When we plugged it, it was already making that sound. It had plenty of different acid loops. As we didn't know how to 'create', we worked on the only one that sounded good. No one really invented it, it was already in there. We sequenced it, and Spanky made the beats".
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Let's go back to 1985. Some months later of "Acid Tracks" conception, DJ Pierre started to think about another music. "About that time, I already knew how to program it", said Pierre on an interview years later. He did some basslines, wrote some lyrics, and recorded them with his personal vocals, but Marshall Jefferson interfered, saying that the sinister lyrics with "This is cocaine speaking!" on its ouverture needed a deeper and more scary voice. Earl Spanky Smith had it, so he owned the chance to sing the legendary tune - as well as to make the beats for it. The tune was baptised "Your Only Friend". With a quote that sounded like mentioning the white powder, "Your Only Friend" was like reflecting the reality of all those nightclubs at that time. Acid and cocaine were both largely consumed by the underground audiences since the Disco era, and they certainly remained consumed by them since the early House scene.
(geknipt uit een bericht van Alain Patrick op discogs, hele stuk is
hier te vinden)
Acid Tracks heeft zoeen genadeloos stevig, donker, basisch geluid en dat zonder overstuurd te raken. Ontzettend stoer en de mannen van Phuture hebben er patent op. Ze wisten met simpele middelen het onderste uit de kan te halen en lieten zien hoe rauw drumcomputers (de tr-707 en tr-727 hier) kunnen klinken en wat een diep hypnotisch effect de 303 synthesizer (in combinatie met de drums) kan hebben. Overigens liep de eerste keer dat dit nummer gedraaid werd de dansvloer leeg, die avond werd het echter 4 keer gedraaid en bij de laatste keer was het feest. De acid scene ontstond van hieruit.
Ik heb Acid Tracks een paar keer op gehad tijdens het rennen en ik ging er toch hard van lopen en kreeg kippenvel. Het was voor mij ook leuk om te ontdekken dat het nummer van Flamman & Abraxas een cover van deze Your Only Friend is. Vond die cover als jong mannetje wel tof, maar dit origineel blijft nu nog sterk.