A Full On Guide to Full On: Megatonk's Belgium and Frendzy's Can't Stop (these are real tracks, honest)

I've been blogging my way through the 1990s house music compilation Full On: Edition One. But then I stopped for a bit. I had to take a break. 

I've been living a slightly isolated life during the whole coronavirus thing. No partner to say good morning to, no elderly relatives to mouth greetings at through a window, and no Fat Roland clones in my basement lab, not since they escaped. I can spend days locked in my own head.

Which means my mental health ebbs and flows, like the tide of an ocean, only with less seaweed. Sometimes I need to step away from things to allow myself to be a bit mentally quieter. Hence not blogging for two weeks.

Let's get back to the 1992 Deconstruction compilation, which most of you won't remember, but which all of you can look up on Discogs.

Megatonk's Belgium is a perky house track with sampled diva vocals that were the staple of Moby tracks back in the 1990s. Have a listen here.

Megatonk was one of the many aliases of Charles Webster, a remixer and label owner who once engineered for the likes of Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson. 

There's not a huge amount to say about Belgium. The track appeared in a mix by Sasha at the Universe club back in 1992, blended in with Lil Louis's Club Lonely. The two tracks work nicely one after the other. On an Azuli Classics compilation a number of years later, DJ John Digweed would mix into Belgium from an INXS track, which sounds terrible but I'm sure worked just fine. Probably.

A more interesting track, in my humble opinion, is the next Full On tune: Frenzy's Don't Stop. I'm pretty sure that echoing saxophone sample is from a Grid track. Have an earful:

The track's actually called Can't Stop and the act seems to be actually called Frendzy, but let's not let a wonky CD listing get in the way of a good tune. This track is deep and hypnotic and everything good about house music in the 1990s.

I can find naff all information about Frendzy, a name which sounds like a failed social network. Production was by Hari, a long-time DJ fixture at Glasgow's Sub Club, and Shug Brankin, who has remixed Apache Indian and, if my googling is correct, once got a load of college kids to make balloon hats.

What can we conclude from these two tracks? One reminds me of Moby and the other reminds me of The Grid. No bad thing.

More Full On faffing to come.

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Read the Full On introduction explaining what the heck this is all about.

A Full On Guide to Full On: Eternal's Mind Odyssey and Felix's It Will Make Me Crazy

Next up on Full On: Edition One is Eternal's Mind Odyssey. 

Eternal was Melbourne club promoter Mark James, who set up the Eternal project with uber massive DJ legend and drag racer Carl Cox. 

Mind Odyssey came out on Warp Records in the UK, with a catalogue number WAP 27 which places it at around the same time as Polygon Window's Surfing On Sine Waves. This makes him proper techno royalty.

Pop this in your ears:

This Eternal is not to be confused with 1990s r'n'b popsters Eternal who wanted to "be the only one, the only one". 

Having said that, Mark has his pop side: he was in a band called Bass Culture with his then girlfriend Gina Gardiner, who later had a big Eurovision hit as Gina G with the appalling Ooh Aah... Just a Little Bit. Gosh, is this what it's like to write a gossip column?

Eternal would be the star of this blog post, but next up on the Full On track listing is Felix. 

The track is Felix's second biggest hit It Will Make Me Crazy, remixed by Rollo of Faithless fame. Listen here:

If Mark James is techno royalty, in the world of Euro-flavoured progressive house Felix is even bigger: a huge pulsating techno God larger than the known universe.

That's not to say Felix was more successful: James' career is huge. But the Felix sound summed up the Full On experience for me. Big cheesy chords, big housey vocals, super-sharp snare clicks, moody minor chords, simplicity throughout. 

It has to be said, this did sound a lot like his biggest hit Don't You Want Me, and the album was very samey. But if it was a formula, it was such a satisfying formula, and I got the impression that a lot of people were copying the Felix sound. Including me at the time on my little Korg keyboard.

Stylistically, Felix's sound isn't a hundred miles away from 2 Unlimited, whose career was taking off at the time of Full On. 2 Unlimited were much bouncier and stoopider, and had far less credibility. 

The lyrics are hugely different for a start. Here's the words for It Will Make Me Crazy:

It will make me crazy!
It will make me crazy!
It will make me crazy!
It will make me crazy!

And here are the lyrics to 2 Unlimited's Get Ready For This:

Techno!
Techno!
Techno!
Techno!

See? Totally different. 

Incidentally, and sorry to keep bouncing between the two Felix singles, but Don't You Want Me hit the UK top ten twice, and then charted a third time when it was used in a Tango advert. 

Felix was born in Chelmsford in Essex, as was Squarepusher, Ceephax Acid Crew, Hazell Dean, Sarah from St Etienne, Grayson chuffing Perry, and, er, the drummer from McFly. There's something in the water in Chelmsford.

What does this all say about Full On and its significance for 1990s dance music? I dunno: I stopped paying attention around about Gina G.

Have an advert:

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A Full On Guide to Full On: Orson Karte's Tonight

My deconstruction of the Deconstruction album Full On: Edition One continues. I realise this is niche, but it was a great compilation that deserves more attention. See all my Full On posts here.

The next track is Orson Karte's Tonight (Original Mix), a smooth-as-a-sausage progressive house track with sampled voices drifting loosely above warm ambient chords. It doesn't stay in the same place either, as it gets its head down for some skippy breakbeat action later in the track.

Have an ear-check here:

Let's have a bit of context. I'm about to throw a lot of information at you. If this following paragraph had a montage sequence, it would freeze at each person's face like a Guy Ritchie film to give you time to absorb all the names. 

Orson Karte was not a well-known act in itself, but its members Julian Dembinski and Lex Blackmore also recorded as Positive Science for Ascension Records, an offshoot of the legendary ambient label Rising High Records probably best known for releasing music by The Irresistible Force, A Homeboy, A Hippie & A Funki Dredd and Luke Vibert. In short: no-one's really heard of Orson Karte (terrible name) but they come with some considerable pedigree.

More interestingly, Alexis Blackmore – Lex to his nearest and dearest – is responsible for one of the most memorable top ten hits of all time.

"Which memorable top ten hit?" I hear you ask, as you gasp in awe at your computer screen. "Is it Vienna by Ultravox? Blue Monday by New Order? Lovin' Is Easy by Hear'Say?" If you can just shut up asking questions, I'll tell you.

Lex ploughed a furrow on the dance music scene touring with The Shamen, apparently contributing to the rap on the Mysterons-sampling Make It Mine. Following the untimely death of The Shamen's Will Sin, he moved to Glasgow and became... drum roll... Blue Boy.

"Who?" 

Who?! What do you MEAN "who"? You definitely know Blue Boy. They had one of the most memorable top ten hits of all time. Positively iconic. Here are the lyrics, which you definitely recognise:

Remember me?
I'm the one who had your babies
Remember me?
I'm the one who had your babies
Ging-giggaging giggigiggiging etc etc etc

Yeah, you know it. Incidentally, Remember Me sampled Marlena Shaw's 1973 live version of Woman Of The Ghetto, which is definitely worth a listen right here. The "babies" line later on in the song contains so much sorrow.

So here we have another insight into Full On. A relatively anonymous act called Orson Karte can be tracked to, five years later, a big stonking top ten single which went some way to defining a '90s 'sound'.

There is plenty more Full On analysis to come (see the track listing here), but it will all be a bit less interesting than this one.

"WHY won't it be interesting? I want everything to be interestiiiiing! Waaaaah!"

You're really starting to get on my nerves, imaginary reader's voice.

Read the Full On series in, er full.

Read the Full On introduction explaining what the heck this is all about.

A Full On Guide to Full On: Lionrock's Lionrock and Little Rascal's Movin' To The Beat

After a bit of Italian and Spanish flavour, the next two tracks on Full On bring us to Northern England.

Track four is Lionrock by Lionrock, or Lion Rock as they are also listed. Is the emphasis on the Lion or on the Rock? Who knows.

It's another early progressive house classic. Justin 'Lionrock' Robertson worked in Manchester's Eastern Bloc Records and built up a neat line in banging four-to-the-floor tunes. Get your ears around this:

 

What's most interesting about Robertson is how his music went on to progress throughout the decade. 1993's Packet Of Peace was notable not only for its acidic lines, but for its conscious-style rap from MC Buzz B. (Not an actual bee.)

By 1995, he was pumping out breakbeats in the form of Straight At Yer Head, and in 1996 he blessed us all with his brilliant Sherlock Holmes-themed big beat album An Instinct For Detection. Oh how this Mancunian trilled at the Manchester-themed track titles: Snapshot On Pollard Street; Wilmslow Road. If memory serves me correctly, he was living in Withington at the time.

His inclusion on 1992's Full On album cements Manchester's reputation as a far-flung Balearic isle: shake those maracas, Bez.

The next track on Full On keeps us in Northern England. Little Rascal's Movin' To The Beat is a lively piano house track with a dollop of Newcastle attitude. I'm pretty sure this would have stormed the Northern clubs back in the day. It's insanely happy:

The Little Rascal himself is label owner Chris Scott, who has electronic music projects coming out of his ears. He's a member of Lexicon Avenue and Echomen, and scanning his list of remixing and production credits, you can spot names like Darren Emerson and John Digweed. This is a bloke hard-wired into club culture.

I know very little about Newcastle. The only time I have been in the North East, at least as an adult, was a visit to a single pub in which a guitarist was playing Jimmy Nail's Crocodile Shoes.

Do you know what I like about this album already? There's something gratifying about a club sound that can slip so easily from Northern Italy to North-East England. It's deliciously European and delightfully unifying.

Speaking of careers progressing throughout the 1990s, the next progressive house track on Full On – Edition One features someone responsible for one of the most memorable top ten hits of the decade. Think blue...

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A Full On Guide to Full On: Havana's Shift and Ramirez's Hablando

Let's continue on my very niche journey of deconstructing the Deconstruction house music compilation album Full On – Edition One (see its Discogs listing here).

The second track on the album is Havana's Shift. I can't find a stream of the particular remix, but here is a version.

Slightly tribal progressive house, setting the tone for the Full On album. 

Shift was released on Limbo Records, a label that arose around Glasgow record shop 23rd Precinct, a place frequented by the legendary and uber-cool Slam DJs. 

You've heard of Slam: they're responsible for the Slam tent mentioned by Limmy here.

Where's the Slam Tent? https://t.co/SZsA8nERVz

— Limmy (@DaftLimmy) October 22, 2014

So yes, Glasgow is a very clubby city. I once hung around in Glasgow kebab shop after a club kicked out at 4am: these folks know how to party.

Limbo Records once held an online poll between Shift and Havana's other big track Schtoom. The latter won with 69% of the vote. It's like Brexit all over again, although with totally different voting numbers and no direct comparison to be made so please ignore this paragraph.

Let's move along. Havana, who sometimes spelled their name with a double N, was followed by Italian-Columbian house act Ramirez and a track called Hablando (it means 'talking' or thereabouts).

Ramirez was a project of the DFC (Dance Floor Corporation), another pioneering underground label that was an advocate in Italy for house music before any Italians were bothered about house music. 

The imprint was the dance offshoot of Expanded Records, who'd struggled to sell new wave and punk records. They got into dance music in the late 1980s because their Bologna heritage. Label boss Giovanni Natale told Billboard in 1994:

"We got into the dance field, and it works because traditional Italian melody is ripe to be recycled into Euro-dance riffs."

I wonder if this is what is going on with the accordion line in Hablando. Have a listen. Again, I don't think this the exact same version that's on the album: let's just assume a whole bunch of the Full On tracks aren't available online, and we'll have to settle with different mixes.

We're three tracks in and we're already feeling the full Italian flavour of this Euro disco, via the underground Scottish club scene. Which is why we're about to take a detour to, er, Wilmslow Road in Manchester. What? Stay tuned for the next instalment of my peek into Full On – Edition One.

Read the Full On series in, er full.

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A Full On Guide to Full On: Usura's Open Your Mind

I'm deconstructing the Deconstruction house music compilation album Full On – Edition One. Let's start with the first track on the album: Usura's Open Your Mind.

This was a pumping hippy house number that went top ten all over Europe. Have a listen.

The lyrics are pretty easy to get to grips with:

Open your mind (oh)

Open your mind (oh)

Open your mind (oh)

Like a lot of dance tracks at the time, it was heavily based on samples, with the "oh" exclamation taken from the very beginning of Ashford & Simpson's 1984 single Solid. The "open your mind" hook is taken from the bit in Total Recall when Arnie meets a grotesque belly baby. No, really.

The main chord sequence is such a heavy sample of Simple Minds' New Gold Dream, it's essentially a cover version. I didn't like Simple Minds when Open Your Mind came out, but I hadn't twigged the connection. They were secretly feeding me Jim Kerr's rock sludge, like sneaking vegetables into a child's dinner.

The choice of Open Your Mind as the opening track on Full On – Edition One was an obvious choice. The bloke from Usura ran Time Records in Italy, a label that played an important part in pushing Italo disco and euro-house. I presume Decon had a deal to release Time tracks in the rest of Europe and beyond.

I bought Usura's album, also called Open Your Mind. It contained their follow-up single Sweat which sounded so much like Open Your Mind, I felt pretty ripped off. You're not allowed to release soundalike tracks in an attempt to replicate past successes. Little did I know this was exactly how pop music worked.

There you go. Track one on Full On – Edition One. Only 15 more tracks to go. Oh. Only 15 more tracks to go. Oh. Only 15 more tracks to go. Oh. *cue belly baby sample*

Read the Full On series in, er full.

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A Full On Guide to Full On: introduction

When Kylie Minogue moved to Deconstruction Records to release Confide In Me, she gained an indie credibility entirely absent from her Stock Aitken and Waterman past.

And yet, Deconstruction was no less pop. Co-founded by Mike Pickering of M People, they had the big piano anthems of Black Box, K-Klass and Bassheads and M People. Taking on Kylie seemed an entirely sensible choice.

There was one compilation, however, which cemented Deconstruction's underground credentials. It was Full On: Edition One, subtitled "a year in the life of house music". This was Decon sticking a massive flag on the moon, and that moon was underground dance music. Not that moons can be made from abstract nouns, but you get the idea.

The cover design wasn't great. Here is its Discogs image in all its low-resolution glory. It looks like the front page of a financial company's glossy annual report. "Yah, Damien says the VAT changes have had a peripheral effect on out-sourcing but the bottom line remains pretty solid."

I shouldn't knock the designers, Farrow Design. They have pretty solid credentials, helping define the look of post-Richie Manics, Orbital's 20th anniversary, and recent Pet Shop Boys.

Anyway, I'm not here to talk about whether navy goes with burnt orange. I'm here to talk about the music.

Full On came out in 1992, which made it pre-cool-Kylie but post-Italo-house. 2 Unlimited had taken the charts by storm with their lowest common denominator "techno" sound. Full On had a foot in similar bouncy Euro-house, but there was something so much more listenable about it.

It had Felix and Usura banging out thumping anthems for blocky pre-Windows-95 visuals. It had an early appearance from Justin 'Lionrock' Robertson', laying an early warning shot for the rise of big beat. And it had a nascent appearance from someone who, five years later, would score one of the most memorable top ten singles of all time.

So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to analyse one track a day and I'm going to call it a Full On Guide to Full On. I'll do two tracks a day if I don't have much to write about. Three if I'm really struggling. You can see the complete track listing on Discogs.

Don't worry: if you never listened to this album, you should still enjoy this. I'm going to shine a light on 1990s dance music by, er, deconstructing this Deconstruction album. At least, I hope so: I haven't written any of it yet.

Stay tuned for the Full On Guide to Full On.

Read the Full On series in, er full.

Read the Full On introduction explaining what the heck this is all about.