LONG LIVE HOUSE VOLUME 1: THE 1980s
I’m very excited to announce that I’m releasing my first compilation album in ages. “Long Live House Volume 1: The 1980s” will be a triple CD and double vinyl release featuring a variety of early house tracks from 1985 to 1989 and is released on the 7th December.
“Long Live House Volume 1: The 1980s” will be a triple CD and double vinyl release featuring a variety of early house tracks released between 1985 and 1989. You’ll know a lot of the tracks but I’ve decided to feature many that are often overlooked and quite a few that you may not know.
The original concept that I discussed with Warner Music back in February was to release a compilation album to celebrate thirty years since the 1988 Summer Of Love, but because it took months to track down the owners of so many of the songs I chose and because I didn’t want to feature the same obvious tracks that have appeared on every retrospective house or club compilation of the past few years (you know the ones), we decided to wait, do our detective work and to release the album now.
It features tracks from Reese & Santonio, Liz Torres, Ryhthim Is Rythim, Fingers Inc., “Fast” Eddie, Farley “Jackmaster” Funk, Ten City, Jomanda, Marshall Jefferson, Raze, Sterling Void, Kevin Saunderson, Roberta Flack and more. I’ve even included a couple of tracks that I released on my own Submission label back in the late 1980s too. A lot of the tracks featured have never been available for downloading or streaming before too.
Although the media has been (quite rightly) obsessed with the “30 years of acid house/30 years since the second summer of love” theme this year (I even contributed to BBC Radio 6 Music’s excellent coverage) I’ve always believed that 1989 was equally as important as 1988 in the rise of house music which is why we’re releasing this album now rather than rush it and cut corners.
1988 and 1989 were the years that house music became a national phenomenon and then went on to dominate throughout the 1990s and beyond. Its influence is far reaching and can still be heard everywhere today. This album documents the early house tracks that first appeared from 1985 onwards. I vividly remember tearing the shrink wrap from JM SIlk’s “Music Is The Key” and Chip E.’s “If You Only Knew” whilst working in a record shop in Nottingham and absolutely loving what I heard. I introduced these and other obscure tracks from Chicago and Detroit to my DJ sets at The Garage in Nottingham to mixed response, but I stuck with this new genre of cheaply made, raw electronic music that had soul and sounded like nothing else because I believed in it. At the same time there were other DJs around the UK who were doing the same, mainly in the Midlands and the North (which is where the scene truly began in the UK) but also with a few DJs down South. There were small pockets of interest in house around the UK but it was the summer of 1988 when the whole nation followed the North and finally embraced house music from Chicago and early techno from Detroit. The choice of cover artwork (courtesy of the magnificent Dorothy Digital) documents the club scene of the time beautifully, which is why it was chosen.
I DJ’d at The Garage in Nottingham, The Haçienda in Manchester (with Mike Pickering), The Leadmill in Sheffield and The Fan Club in Leicester every week and all of these tracks were massive from the day they were released and continued to be so well into the early 1990s.
This forthcoming compilation is the soundtrack to my early DJ career and was an absolute labour of love to research and compile with the help of Warner Music. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed creating it.
“Long Live House Volume 1: The 1980s” is released on 7th December 2018. Look out for special launch parties, q&a sessions, signings, merchandise, competitions, exclusive DJ mixes and more.
Pre-order your copy here: https://lnk.to/GPark
LONG LIVE HOUSE CD COVER
LONG LIVE HOUSE VINYL COVER