2008-05-31

Dreams of Saturday Night: Austin Bascom aka. Ax:us and Aba-cus

I am officially an old fart now! When I recently became aware that a deep-house revival was about to take off, my initial reaction was "What Revival? It just happened!" This "just happened" was of course ten years ago. Time to admit that I had locked my ass on the deep-house groove and that I pulled a "Patsy & Edina" ("Get your clothes from the dry-cleaner and it´s a `Revival`") in my ignorance to the passing of time.


By the end of the nineties quality deep-house productions became quite rare. Flagship labels like Guidance, Paper, Prescription and Naked closed shop or became increasingly irrelevant. Electroclash upped the tempo, the ante and -admittedly- the party. I was always more interested in minimal, which in its best moments was a continuation of the sound that I loved.

And now, with the rising demand for new deep-house output, some of the original producers are back with stunning new material (not that the stuff from ten years ago would sound in any way dated!).

Austin Bascom, a Canadian living in London, released some great stuff as Aba-cus and Ax:us on the creme-de-la-creme deep house labels.

He just did a remix for Canadian Jazz-Funk outfit King Sunshine. His "Abacus Rethink Dub" of their "Love your brother" is one of the finest, classic deep-house excursions I have heard in a long time. Perfect and timeless.

Listen on a good soundsystem:
Love Your Brother (Abacus Rethink Dub)

Enjoy classic "My Planet Rocks" by Ax:us. This mid-nineties track oozes with layers and layers of pristine synthesizer-brilliance:
My Planet Rocks

End (or begin) your journey with this blissed out remix of Chaser´s "Blue Planet"
Blue Planet (Abacus Remix)

Austin Bascom has relaunched his Re:Think Recordings label and with his "Love your Brother"-Remix he has set the bar incredibly high. Good times for old farts and many more dreams of saturday night...

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