Fabric 43

Performer: Metro Area
Distributor: Fusion 3 Distribution

Notes: DJ: Metro Area. Since 1999, New York-based production duo Metro Area (Morgan Geist and Darshan Jesrani) have been prime-movers of dance music's disco renaissance, debuting a series of singles that retraced the roots of house, back to the oft-overlooked disco and boogie of club music's earlier era. While MA's own nuanced productions demonstrate an affinity for a blending of the organic and the synthetic--coming across like modern-day retrofits of disco and R&B instrumentals--the duo's acclaimed DJ sets encompass a far broader swath of styles and sensibilities. FABRIC 43 is an hour-plus continuous-mix commissioned for the famed U.K.-based nightclub-cum-label, Fabric. Fearlessly mixing synth pop staples like Ministry and Heaven 17 with post-disco standard bearers such as Voyage and Gary's Gang, the set celebrates in dance music's shared resonances from bouncing synth bass lines, cascading toms, and persistent claps, to unabashedly cheesy melodies. Gleefully riding the thinnest of lines between respectful reverence and full-blown camp, FABRIC 43 flips the script on club music's overripe and all too carefully manicured notion of the DJ mix. A Metro Area Fabric mix might have been timed more shrewdly prior to 2008, before younger folks into underground dance music -- a significant chunk of the London club's label audience, for sure, if not all of it -- began to move on from the Italo disco and post-disco R&B Morgan Geist and Darshan Jesrani had been creating for years. In some quarters, though, the oddball stuff is as eternal as the relatively narrow scope of Little Steven's Underground Garage, and no one is more adept at serving it up than these two. After an impossibly corny MA voice-over atop a woozy slice of Bollywood cheese ("That was the horn that Fabric gave us instead of our advance money!"), all manner of synthesizer and drum machine-driven post-disco follows. Naturally, the sweet spot is in the early '80s, with early "alternative" staples -- Ministry's "Work for Love," Heaven 17's "Penthouse and Pavement" -- dispersed between black radio smashes like Gary's Gang's "Makin' Music" and Midway's "Set It Out" (the latter produced by Brownsville Station refugee Bruce Nazarian; Little Steven would disapprove). The relatively obscure nuggets are abundant: Mascara's Jellybean-mixed "Baja," Wiretap's "X-Rated Man," Atmosphere's "Swede's Scandal," and Voyage's "Souvenirs," all featuring plump synthetic basslines and awesomely syrupy melodies, would have been at home within Geist's Unclassics series and mix. A handful of later selections adds seamless range: the Pal Joey-produced "I Can Feel It," with an assist from Samson & Delilah's "I Can Feel Your Love Slippin' Away" (another MA favorite), the "Acid Rainforest Mix" of Plez's tribal house jam "Can't Stop," and a track from Baby Oliver (Geist's most twisted production alias). One of the set's best transitions is saved for last, where Premi�re Classe's goofily regal "Poup�e Flash" snap-locks into Devo's "Freedom of Choice" -- an all-too-fitting finale from an American DJ team in 2008. ~ Andy Kellman

Clash (magazine) (p.104) - "Taking 1985 as a starting point, it's a glorious foray into squelchy analogue bass, disco claps, swirling synths and stomping beats..."

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