One day, around the time that "Sandwiches" was tearing up dancefloors in Detroit (and elsewhere), I held the record in my hands, gave it a listen, and was unimpressed. At that time, I was suspicious of anything ressembling techno that had vocals on it. Vocals were taking up valuable sonic space that could have been used for an ear-splitting hi-hat. There was a reason that the likes of Sven Dedek, Kai Randy Michel, and Cari Lekebusch didn't have vocals on their records -- they were too harsh, too cranium busting, too dense for such things. Also, I wasn't sure how to handle anything electro-based. These were the days before I acquired scruffy, roughshod, ass-quaking electro records that meshed so well with both the stripped-down/minimal and the pounding/minimal stuff I liked so much. Months down the line, Sven Dedek eased off on the treble for the bootylicious (and sometimes hilarious) "Mo Money EP", but by that point, Pantytec's "Elastobabe" was already one of my favourite records. The vocalists had broken through my thick skull.
Well, I bought DGP's debut album "Funk All Y'All" a few weeks ago and have been catching up on the stuff I've missed/neglected. Their big ghettotech hit is just scratching the surface of the broad spectrum of styles featured here. The album flows like a mixtape or DJ set. It begins with guns blaring on the P-Funk-y title track, moves through lots of booty shaking and fratboy humour, the tracks gradually get more and more stripped down, and closes with "Rain", a track which could easily be mistaken for the minimal dub-techno of Berlin's Maurizio.
With tracks four and five, they go from the rump-quaking cartoonish "Sandwiches" straight into "After School Special", which is a mid-tempo electro track featuring the morose vocals of a pre-breakthrough Miss Kittin. It's easily the saddest song I've ever heard about pimping ho's. Somehow, this bizarre segue works spectacularly.
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