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)