It’s been late coming but I decided at the last minute to do something new and make an exclusive mix for all the subscribers who’ve kept with me over the 2.5 years so far. It’s a themed mix of Mark Moore from S’Express remixes – yes, niche I know but I love what he and William Orbit did back in the day and wanted to put a load of it in one place.

Spurred on by the release of S’Express & Daddy Squad’s amazing ‘Music 4 The Mind’ single late last year I went down a Mark Moore remix wormhole over the Xmas period and pulled together a collection of his works – mainly in collaboration with William Orbit – from the 80s heyday of acid house and beyond. I’ve been – and continue to be – a huge fan of S’Express and Mark’s work since day one with the singles around the Original Soundtrack album remaining peerless examples of peak pop house perfection.

Titled ‘Disco Was A Dirty Word’ in reference to the interview which threads its way through the mix where Paul Morley quizzes Mark about his career and disco’s resurgence, the set encompasses most of his early remixes, just tipping into the early 90s with his work for Prince and Seal. Kicking off with the first of four reworks for Malcolm McLaren from his Waltz Darling/Vogueing era we have a deep ambient mix of ‘Call A Wave’ sliding into the Orbital Mix of the same track. The first of a quartet of Prince remixes follows – and what a pair of names to have on your CV – with ‘Electric Chair’ from the Batman soundtrack.

Les Rita Mitsouko’s ‘Tongue Dance’ was a new one to me but you can hear plenty of S’Express trademarks in the mix; breaks, disco string stabs and funky guitar all over it. The Vicki Vale mix of ‘Batdance’ kicks the tempo up a bit with the sampled break pointing to Prince’s later ‘Gett Off’ or is it just me? ‘Deep In Vogue’s primo disco makeover segues out into some sort of TV show diatribe as Seal’s ‘The Beginning’ rolls in with its super-catchy synth line. The ‘Batdance’ Batmix is – for me – one of the highlights here whereby the disjointed single gets fused into one seething electronic groove and you get a sense that Mark and William were really doing their damnedest to impress the purple one by twisting the vocals inside out to awesome effect. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anything like that ‘Batmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan’ vocal strung out and dialled up and down the harmonic scale so excitingly before or since. S’Express always used vocal samples as rhythms more than mere spoken word fodder.

We return to ‘The Beginning’, except its the Dub version which gives us space for more of Mark’s interview before the refashioning of Prince’s ‘The Future’ thunders in. It’s a masterclass in tension and release, with the dark, foreboding synths plastered over the churning, almost industrial rhythm – another favourite. The last of the McLaren collaborations is the Walk the Body mix of ‘Something’s Jumpin’ In Your Shirt’, a tale about an adolescent girl discovering her breasts are growing no less, full of acid squelch before we end with the new single, ‘Music 4 The Mind’. I can’t get enough of this and there are currently two other remixes kicking around the web with the third on the way. For me it embodies the essence of classic S’Express with the Billie Ray Martin vocal callback in the breakdown and the interview cut ups with contemporary production techniques and a killer bass line.

Check out Mark’s website, there’s plenty to dig into; mixes, videos, galleries and discography from one of the original acid house heads, still opening minds.
https://markmoore.com/
Buy Music 4 The Mind here

Track list:
Malcolm McLaren – Call A Wave (Return To The Deep Ambient Mix)
Malcolm McLaren – Call A Wave (Orbital Mix)
Prince – Electric Chair (Remix)
Les Rita Mitsouko – Tongue Dance (12” version)
Prince – Batdance (Vicki Vale Mix)
Malcolm McLaren & The Bootzilla Orchestra – Deep In Vogue (Banje Realness)
Seal – The Beginning (The Mark Moore UK Remix)
Prince – Batdance (The Batmix)
Seal – The Beginning (The Mark Moore Dub)
Prince – The Future (Remix)
Malcolm McLaren – Something’s Jumpin’ In Your Shirt (Walk the Body Mix)
S’Express & Daddy Squad – Music 4 The Mind (Original mix)