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Danny Tenaglia
BACK TO BASICS
(SYSTEMS)

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Any doubts — and there’ve been plenty recently — about whether or not DJ Danny Tenaglia is still the master DJ of house music should be put to rest by the sessions on this two-disc set. As tribal and vocal as Tourism, the 1999 CD that made him, and as various and crazy as both of his Global Underground discs, London and Athens, the two year-2000 double CDs that cemented his reputation, Back to Basics celebrates the tenth anniversary of the London rave club of that name.

London has always embraced the classic sounds of disco — the rhythms of funk and the vocals of Philly soul. And since Tenaglia has always built his sexy, dark, house-music sound atop these foundations, this is an almost perfect collection. It’s spacy and tribal, deep and sweaty, vocally excited and melodically rapturous, quoting the very classic (Instant Funk’s 1978 anthem "Got My Mind Made Up," Corinna Joseph’s "Live Your Life with Me") and the almost classic, much of it London-made (Victoria Wilson-James, Cevin Fisher, Blake Baxter, Dubtribe Sound System) amid the new (Black Powder’s "Mosaferat," BRS’s "Catch the Boat," and Celeda’s "Be Yourself," written by Tenaglia) and the very new (Belgian Resistance’s "Sharpside," Stefano Greppi’s "Freedom Is," and Breeder’s "Carnival XIII") as the music purrs and rolls, whispers and screams its way from one ecstatic moment to another. A special treat here is the liner notes: every song is commented upon — incisively, of course — by Tenaglia himself.

BY MICHAEL FREEDBERG

Issue Date: October 17 - October 24, 2002
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