Howdy folks! Murderbot speaking. I am new to this whole fancy “BLOG” thing, and also woefully behind on the whole “world of modern music” nonsense, so I guess I’ll start things out by enumerating some of my very favorite older things that I think should be a little higher-profile than they are in the current hipster dance music culture at large. First and foremost among these has to be LIME.
It’s kind of a forgotten chapter in our dance music history (unless you’re Canadian), but in the years between the crash of American disco culture and the rise of Italo- & Euro-disco (roughly 1979-1982/3), Montreal was basically the disco capital of the world. There were a ton of great producers, strong distributors, and wonderful (albeit not always consistent) labels (the biggest of which, Unidisc, is still in business and doing a lot of reissues and such). Being a bridge between NY disco and Italo, Quebecois disco sounded pretty much like you’d imagine: think Jackie Moore meets Fun Fun.
Anyway, my personal favorite (and probably the most consistent and forward-thinking) of the whole Montreal scene were Lime, a rather square-looking middle-aged husband-and-wife duo named (get this) Denis & Denyse LePage. They’re really pretty corny (Denis sounds like some sort of raspy gay biker, Denyse kind of sounds like Miss Piggy at times, their cover art makes Patrick Nagel seem tastefully understated by comparison, and their lyrics are often ridiculous in a way that only non-native English speakers can manage), but damnit it WORKS. And furthermore, these guys are SO EFFING TECHNO IT HURTS. Listen to the drums! The synthwork! These two were using 909s, 202s, Junos, Jupiters, and the like during their ORIGINAL PRODUCT RUNS in the same ways we use them now. It kind of puts to bed the old myth of “all this Roland gear was worthless shit until some house kids discovered a cache of it lying abandoned, unsellable, in a pawn shop in the hood, bought it on a whim, and randomly discovered you could make music with it.” I’ll give you that story for the 303 (as long as you don’t mention it to Alexander Robotnick), but seriously GIVE THE CANUCKS SOME EFFING RESPECK ALREADY, FOLKS.
[audio:uggc://jjj.fyrnmrgbar.pbz/oybt/yvzr-lbhe_ybir_ezk.zc3]Download: Lime; Your Love (Re-Mix) (1981)
[audio:uggc://jjj.fyrnmrgbar.pbz/oybt/yvzr-natry_rlrf_qho.zc3]Download: Lime; Angel Eyes (Dub Mix) (1983)
[audio:uggc://jjj.fyrnmrgbar.pbz/oybt/yvzr-jnaan_ybfr_lbh.zc3]Download: Lime; I Don’t Wanna Lose You (1984)
music was but, did show sound foundation for what is technology music. murderbot nice piece it was a pleasure to read. thank you so much for own contribution to beat manipulation.
Sin Rob
Man I love LIME. Been looking for anything of theirs for awhile now.
Dude
Lime is the Shit.
I’a sucker for their stuff for years. Denis LePage also produced other artists like Carol Jiani.
Check out http://www.discomuseum.com/Lime.html
I play the instrumentals al the time (the vocals sometimes sound a little dated)
Check out my favorite Lime track Agent 406.
yeah, Denis was involved with a TON of Montreal stuff…Carol Jiani, Kat Mandu, Voggue, France Joli, Ann Joy, Diva, and virtually anything on Matra. He’s everywhere!
What great info! I had no idea what Lime looked like but I LOVE their music. Many thanks for sharing!
I discovered Lime in the late 90s as my partner had their greatest hits and I started secretly liking their music even though their sound was not that popular in the 90s. Later in the early to mid 2000’s their sound started getting more and more appreciated until the last 3 – 4 years I’ve been digging them more and more. I recently purchased the Disco Discharge Pink Pounders CD and found their song I Don’t Want To Lose You and WOW man that is such a cool tune. I love it and I love LIME! I think Lime and Kano were the little known gems of the 80s dance music movement!
And you are right about their album covers they are cheesy but I dig them lots! Thanks for the awesome post!
Is that what you people think of us?….We had a ball doing all this music. Denis is now a Tranny and working hard to get more music on the air 🙂
Denyse
Lime
wow! Denyse Le Page!!!
it’s Chrissy (who wrote this blog post)…if you ever wanna do vocals on one of my albums, please get in touch! I would love to work with you 🙂
Chrissy
chrissy@murderbot.com