A Metro Area Fabric mix might have been timed more shrewdly prior to 2008, before younger folks into underground dance music -- a significant chunk of the London club's label audience, for sure, if not all of it -- began to move on from the Italo disco and post-disco R&B Morgan Geist and Darshan Jesrani had been creating for years. In some quarters, though, the oddball stuff is as eternal as the relatively narrow scope of Little Steven's Underground Garage , and no one is more adept at serving it up than these two. After ...
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A Metro Area Fabric mix might have been timed more shrewdly prior to 2008, before younger folks into underground dance music -- a significant chunk of the London club's label audience, for sure, if not all of it -- began to move on from the Italo disco and post-disco R&B Morgan Geist and Darshan Jesrani had been creating for years. In some quarters, though, the oddball stuff is as eternal as the relatively narrow scope of Little Steven's Underground Garage , and no one is more adept at serving it up than these two. After an impossibly corny MA voice-over atop a woozy slice of Bollywood cheese ("That was the horn that Fabric gave us instead of our advance money!"), all manner of synthesizer and drum machine-driven post-disco follows. Naturally, the sweet spot is in the early '80s, with early "alternative" staples -- Ministry's "Work for Love," Heaven 17's "Penthouse and Pavement" -- dispersed between black radio smashes like Gary's Gang's "Makin' Music" and Midway's "Set It Out" (the latter produced by Brownsville Station refugee Bruce Nazarian; Little Steven would disapprove). The relatively obscure nuggets are abundant: Mascara's Jellybean-mixed "Baja," Wiretap's "X-Rated Man," Atmosphere's "Swede's Scandal," and Voyage's "Souvenirs," all featuring plump synthetic basslines and awesomely syrupy melodies, would have been at home within Geist's Unclassics series and mix. A handful of later selections adds seamless range: the Pal Joey-produced "I Can Feel It," with an assist from Samson & Delilah's "I Can Feel Your Love Slippin' Away" (another MA favorite), the "Acid Rainforest Mix" of Plez's tribal house jam "Can't Stop," and a track from Baby Oliver (Geist's most twisted production alias). One of the set's best transitions is saved for last, where Première Classe's goofily regal "Poupée Flash" snap-locks into Devo's "Freedom of Choice" -- an all-too-fitting finale from an American DJ team in 2008. ~ Andy Kellman, Rovi
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