Joubert Singers - Stand on the World (Larry Levan Mix)
I'm not sure the true story of the track, there are several different versions. Discogs credits disco remix pioneer Walter Gibbons (and his early 80's religious conversion) with it's discovery. A Youtube clip of the song lists it as released in 1982, as opposed to Discogs 1985 listing for both the original and Tony Humphries remix releases. Also, French electro group Keedz recently released a version of the track that's gotten some play on Annie Mac's BBC show. This is Larry Levan's mix, which I originally found on some blog and then rediscovered on the Unabombers "Electric Chair Rip", an excellent disco edit single.
Okay, I'm done being nerdy. This song is just undeniable. It begins with a rippling piano line and from there it just builds and builds. The drums are typical Levan, punchy and succinct, with some monstrously extended hand claps. A slap bass line is almost joking around it's so wild, with some wicked vibrato and really strange rhythmic accents. The instrumentation is perfect, but the real draw is the choir.
You can hear the vocals begin to build at the around the 30 second mark and they explode into actual lyrics a little after one minute in. The refrain is triumphant, the mixing of male and female voices is particularly poignant, the gender of the vocal timbre weaves in and out gracefully and effectively. My favorite part has got to be when the female voice is isolated and sings, "We don't know how, we don't know when." It has the flair of a show-tune.
Also, be sure to listen to the whole track because the last 30 seconds is when it atually hits the "Stand on the World" part, and although it fades out rather quickly, it is a great culmination of the rest of the song.
BONUS:
Alternative version of Stand On the World, this one listed as released in 1982. More electro-funked out, but lacking the grace of the Levan mix.
Version by Keedz released in 1982. The high synth stabs on this are nearly identical to Justice's D.A.N.C.E, the bass sound is awful, and it sounds like they're exploiting the original vocal recording. Really not very good.
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DOUBLE BONUS:
And lastly another MP3 from that Unabombers single, this a mix of Daniel Wang's "Like Some Dream (I Can't Stop Dreaming), which was featured on the James Murphy/Pat Mahoney Fabric Live mix last year. It's the heat.
Daniel Wang - Like Some Dream (I Can't Stop Dreaming)
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Favorite Song Wednesday
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Daniel Wang has some goodies here and there. Sometimes he can sound a little dated the way that older techno/dance does sometimes. I tend to put him in the category "people doing disco before disco was cool again in the 21st century" because, at least personally speaking, it seems to look like techno went pretty far away from disco for a while and now it's coming back. But Daniel Wang was rocking it all through the nineties. I really like the songs "In The Street," "Loose Vibes, and "All Flowers Must Fade" if you want to dig into some of his other tracks...
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