In 1995, I was playing Goa Trance mixed with Funky-breaks. I owned Diesel leather motocross pants and considered it a waste to NOT have a ring on every finger (thumbs not included). I had slowly veered away from my hard techno roots, and had lost my way. The adrenaline fueled glory of 1992 was a distant memory. Records were not “crazy”, they were “phat”. The whole era makes me nauseous. Anyway, around this time, my dad was in London, and I asked him to get me some records at Zoom Records (RIP). He came back with Canada’s first copy of Hardfloor’s “Acperience” and a white label that just said “FRED 1”. That is the point of this story… FRED 1 changed my life. FRED was hard techno updated. FRED had a sound I had never heard, super-compressed and insane: the attitude of gabber but with style. I burned my pants. I smelted my rings. I was reborn and inspired to change my name (to Tiga). FRED also had another name… Cari Lekebusch.
Fast forward to 2003. I’m in stockholm working on the follow up to Pleasure From The Bass with Jesper. He gives me a remix he just did for Cari…. it sounds like Sting but EVEN better. I fall in love. The track was “Shaded”, and for years I closed sets with it….. it never totally fit in, and on paper it SHOULD have sucked: but it didn’t. Not since my own records had male-vocal, sexy, electro-tinged club music sounded so good.
Now 5 years later, to kick off 2008, we at Turbo are re-introducing a lost gem: first, the unreleased original Jesper demo mix, then new mixes by Compuphonic & Kolombo and new Turbo artist Clouded Vision aka Matt Walsh and Stephen Cook. I swear these mixes are something special, not your usual remix-filler crap.
Not so many jokes. I’m saving them up for our compilation.
Tiga
Expansive four-track EP from the electronic-leaning solo project of Lee Malcolm, a founding member of experimental band Vessels. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 4, 2024