Dodge City Productions - Unleash Your Love - (1993)

4th & Broadway ‎– BRCD 265, 4th & Broadway ‎– 862 067-2

Another banger from the Dodge City Productions boys, again featuring the wonderful  Portugese jazz vocalist Ghida De Palma on vocals. This was the next-best track after As Long As We're Around off the Steppin' Up & Out album, and  makes for another heavy release.

You get a radio edit version in the City Lick Edit, but not the full length or an extended version. This original rub still remains my favourite so I'm including the LP version as well for completions sake.

The Unleash Your Love (Unleash A Scat Mix) is a nice change of pace - a much tougher beat, with a dash of ragga dancehall style vocals give it a completely different vibe to the original with Ghida strutting her stuff via resung vocals.

The No Strings Attached mix is aptly named, being the regular City Lick version minus all strings instrumentation. It's nice but does leave me thinking the strings were there for a reason.

Somewhat predictably, I say go straight for the Album Version or the City Lick Edit to enjoy this track at its best. The other mixes are well worth a listen though.

Kymba

Tracklist

1. Unleash Your Love (City Lick Edit)
2. Unleash Your Love (Unleash A Scat Mix)
3. Unleash Your Love (No Strings Attached Mix)
4. Don't Worry
5. Bonus Track: Unleash Your Love (City Lick Mix) (Album Version) 

Download: DCP-UYL.7z | Filesize: 58.4MB

Steven Simmonds - Tears Never Dry - (1998)

Rhythm Series – CDRHYTHM 14, Parlophone – 7243 8 86116 2 6

Note - I originally posted this back in June 2012, but now re-upping in glorious 320! Enjoy!

Wow. This is such a badass, sexy track. You get the impression that poor Stephen Simmonds had been dumped by his woman when these tracks were recorded. He's really taking it hard, and beating himself up for having screwed up. Still, his pain seems to make for good music, and so we have the tracks Tears Never Dry featuring popular Swedish singer Lisa Nilsson, and One, which is track two (heh). Tears Never Dry is a catchy, nice little slice of pop soul. One is a man vs piano slow jam of repentance that's a little too self absorbed for me.

No disrespect to tracks one and two, but skip 'em and head straight into track three: the Soul Inside Mix. It's perfection. Dodge brings something really special to the table, and turns a good song into a f***ing great one. Better bassline, better beat, and you've got to love that mournful guitar. It's wicked (I'm sure that's Ronnie Jordan, considering his ties with the DCP boys, but he's not credited).  Anyway, this remix really brings the track to seductive, moody life, and is so good that I will always go straight for it.

Stephen Simmonds, big up your naughty, got caught cheating behind your girls back, chest.

By the way, his album Spirit Tales, which is the only other release I have by him, is excellent, and comes highly recommended by me.

Here's an artist bio stolen from LastFM:

Stephen Simmonds is a Swedish Alternative Soul recording artist, son of a Jamaican musician Father and Swedish Mother was raised in the south of Stockholm, the United States and Israel.

After completing a high-school education at the Stockholm music school Södra Latin, Swedish producer Peter Cartriers heard of Stephens talent in 1995 and invited him to his studio in Stockholm where they made a demo that first attracted the attention of a Swedish indie label and then secured a record deal with the UK major label Parlophone/EMI Music as well as Priority Records in the US. Stephen wrote and Peter produced Stephens first critically acclaimed and 5 times Grammy nominated album “Alone” (the album was re-mixed and re-named “Spirit Tales” for his UK and US release) and Stephen Simmonds had his breakthrough in 1997 with the hit “Tears Never Dry” a duet with Swedish superstar Lisa Nilsson that quickly became the most played track on radio that year.

Since then his talent has brought him to the US and the UK where he has collaborated with renowned artists such as Raphael Saadiq, Masters At Work and Mica Paris. His US release “Spirit Tales” was highly recommended by Prince and the New Power Generation on their official website.

He has performed for Stevie Wonder and Amnesty and he is the only Swedish artist who has been reviewed in the Quincy Jones founded Soul and R&B bible Vibe Magazine.

PS - I think there are some other mixes of this floating around, which I've never heard, so if you have these, why not share the love with us?

Tracklist

1. Tears Never Dry
2. One
3. Tears Never Dry (Soul Inside Mix)

Download: SS-TND.7z | Filesize: 33.6MB

Dodge City Productions - The Clarity EP - (1992)

4th & Broadway Records BRCD 231 - 886 397-2

320 re-up - originally posted 07/06/2012.

Dodge City Productions (DCP) were a British hip hop/Acid jazz group formed in London circa 1991, (and signed to the 4th & Broadway records), by IG Culture (real name Ian Grant) and DJ Dodge (real name Roger Drakes). They were one of the leaders of the Acid Jazz movement, and also received much acclaim and success for their many, many dope remixes, usually done as "City Lick". The group split in the early 1990s, and both members went to have further success in the music industry as solo artists.

Anyway, I've already told you all about the DCP boys here, so to the tracks themselves.

I have problems picking out what version I prefer as I like them both; I think The Clarity Edit just edges it as the drums seem a bit tighter, but there's not a lot in it. What do you think?? 

It's backed up by two solid cuts from the album: Ain't Going For That (actually a sequel to the album cut) & The Slow Jam which is a gorgeous jazzy cut that slinks its way under your skin, and features... yeah, you guessed it, our man Ronnie Jordan on guitar.

All in all, a quality release.

Tracklist

1. The Road In Front Of Me (The Clarity Edit)
2. The Road In Front Of Me (The Black Mix)
3. Ain't Going For That (Part 2 '92)
4. The Slow Jam

Download: DCP-TC-EP.7z | Filesize: 54.0MB

Dodge City Productions - As Long As We're Around - (1992)

4th & Broadway Records - BRCD 261

320 Re-up - Originally posted 06/05/2012 by me.

Combining an authentic jazzy Hip-Hop swagger with a sophisticated soulful knowhow and bringing it to everything they touched, DJ Dodge and IG Culture were two of my favourite producers back in the day. 

A regrettably short-lived career as a duo in their own right under the name Dodge City Productions saw them release an EP, a couple of singles and an LP, Steppin' Up & Out, and go on to remix anybody who mattered, infusing any artist with their trademark classy urban sound.

Steppin' Up & Out is a great album, but I felt it perhaps leaned a little too heavily towards Hip-Hop, and could have done with a couple more tracks like As Long As We're Around to make it truly fly, as it was clearly the stand-out track. Feels a little weird me saying that, being the Hip-Hop fan that I am, to speak the truth.

Both Dodge and IG have enjoyed hugely successful solo careers since disbanding DCP and are still very much involved in the music scene. Here's some further reading on on our dynamic duo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_City_Productions

Onto this release, featuring the talented vocalist Ghida De Palma singing her ass off, and the mighty Ronnie Jordan on guitar (no wonder it sounds so great), the LP Edit is a nice enough shortening of a brilliant track, but it saddens me there is no extended version of it, or even just the full LP version, on this CD (so I've included the full album track in the download to make up for that fact. Never say I don't look after you). Why only feature a shortened version of the reason you're buying the single for in the first place?? It doesn't make sense.

The script gets flipped in a harder take on the track in the Say You Hear Dis Mix; Ghida's vocals are re-sung in a more aggressive fashion, the beat is considerably harder; and it sounds a lot better today than I remember from the time when all I cared about was the original/LP version that was getting heavy rotation. Really good stuff. The Dub Dance version is effectively the LP mix minus pieces of the chorus, but is otherwise a minor variation on the original mix.

Rounding it out is the Whistle Mix of Young Life, which is a nice early 90s slice of jazzy Hip-Hop which, if, like me, you're into bands like A Tribe Called Quest or De La Soul will appeal to you.

Enjoy this, as it's another classic.

Tracklist

1. As Long As We're Around (LP Edit)
2. As Long As We're Around (Say You Hear Dis Mix)
3. As Long As We're Around (Dub Dance)
4. Young Life (Whistle Mix)
5. Bonus: As Long As We're Around (LP Version)

Download Link is here: DCP-ALAWA.7z | Filesize: 54.4MB