Cocaine Speaking – House Mixes

“What we have here is the single most infectious groove to land in my lap since this whole Mix Doctor thing began.” Thus assessed DJ Mag this year, in a review penned almost a decade after that infectious groove they mention was first laid-down to DAT within an unsuspecting Australian scene, way back in 1999. That pivotal, essential tune – ‘Cocaine Speaking’ – has been such an infectious mainstay on the club circuit, it’s since been remixed over two dozen times by innovative producers across the globe, brushing up against drum & bass, dub, tech-house, hip-hop, disco, wonky techno, and progressive trance along the way.

Here, the Original 1999 Mix by Little Nobody vs. DJ Fodder resurfaces, and 9 years on it’s as catchy as it ever was – a deceptively slow, occasionally cut-up and flanged-out reconsideration of classic Chicago house, packing out dance floors as easily now in Tokyo as it did in its hometown (Melbourne) all that time ago, when computers ran a lot slower, the global economy was running smoother, Bill Clinton was American president, and MySpace didn’t exist.

In the first remix, Scottish producer Dave Tarrida – he of Tresor and Sativae fame, and one of Little Nobody’s long-time favorite producers – strips back the track to its bare bones, and remakes it in gob-smacking new ways, with a flavor that owes as much to his own unique mindset as it does to Detroit and to exported Edinburgh wonky techno. It’s minimal, but it grooves and shakes and plunders the funk.

Next up, Takashi Watanabe, considered by many to be the current wunderkind in Japanese tech-house – lives up to this rep here, as he unleashes a spectacular assault on the senses, and bangs it out just that little bit more.

Cinnaman, the head-honcho of Adelaide’s notorious Dirty House crew, injects acid into the equation with a masterpiece of surly, slowly bubbling, tech -injected madness that reminds you just what the track’s title is all about.

The final remix is by Little Nobody himself, a brand new 2008 reconsideration that shows how much he’s developed and segued musically over the intervening years. Andrez Bergen’s new version is overall a crisp, smart, assured disco-tech mix, that has subtle twists and turns and hilariously eclectic touches, all of which never undermine a sensational sense of the groove.

Which brings us full circle to the Original Version, and a review of that track in British magazine, Muzik, back in 2001. It’s a review that seems somewhat timely in the current global economic climate: “(Cocaine Speaking is) a bit like Gordon Brown breaking off from talking about monetary policy to dance the can-can. And we all know how great that is.”

Styles: House, Tech House, Dirty House