One of the more emphatic numbers
from the sensual opus Dewdrops In The Garden (a dense hybrid of hip-hop,
funk, house, jungle and rave). When the rippling trance-reverb kicks in
and Kier's diva rotale sharpness pierces through with all the right
sensations, I can't help but think that they missed a trick not
releasing this.
Sadly, the Runaway video (which is a cute clip)
was just not downloadable it seems, but Deee-Lite was such a visually
rich act, with Kier's innate flair resonating and 'riding on through' no
matter what she did, where and when. She's back on the PA circuit,
and that fine voice of hers continues to blossom, now with a soul-mamma
rasp that we always knew she had in her anyway. I just hope we
eventually do get a solo album: "on our way" indeed. I hope
Deee-Lite fans enjoy this should they stumble across it, this song in
particular captures my imagination. Kier's quote that "our music was a
hopeful escape, diffusing day to day reality" couldn't sum up my
feelings any better.
World Clique may have been dance-pop utopia, but Deee-Lite still had territory to explore on 1992's follow-up Infinity Within, an album that scarecely gets positive reviews and yet technically improves their overall sound even if the tunes don't offer the same involuntary jerks to the senses (ie, it's hungry for proper club juice). I will never be able to put into words the satisfaction this band give me, but whilst putting on this CD I decided to thrash out what I can only try to call a review...
Eco-friendly jungle beats of I.F.O (Identified Flying Object) is F.Y.I (For Your Information) no Deee-Lite's Theme that is for sure, but foxy lady Lady Kier could read the phone book and still sound like a sex-crazed tranny so it's no surprise that purring about fax orgies is more than enough stimulation to get me moist for deeper insertions.
I don't have a problem with Runaway, the album's lead single, but the album version sounds infinitely flat compared to the house-beat pumped up radio edit. Radio weren't listening and Kier herself had lost her sense of humour a tad during interviews (cue fan waffle):
(one particular youtube clip conveys the immense goodwill felt towards this band and shows that reaction quickly diminished somewhat by her only-slightly difficult responces, which they turn around of course, but it still serves as a valid point to be made. To crudely praphrase, Kier herself later admitted they were too serious in this era).
Chic with horns, the slinky and flambouyant Heart Be Still is the album's most rousing orgasm. Should have been the album's first single. With a bass sprouting like an afro, the organs shimmy and boy does Kier gurn - 'ahoo-woah, where I go, no one knows!' is nervous overload. With a groove that feels like life, 'I feel weak when you do speak, like a rollercoaster at it's peak' has even Kier feeling powerless to stop herself getting off, sighing seductively in sultry defence 'your charm grabbed me by the arm'.
Pop without the fizz, I Won't Give Up was the first song Kier penned lyrics to as part of the group. Perhaps they had kept it in the fridge until then - it doesn't taste fresh (Smile On tossed up the same ingredients with more vigour), but it's digestible enough. The only song that actually sounded better on their 1996 compliation album Sampladelic Relics & Dancefloor Odities, remixed by future memeber DJ Ani. I would fall asleep here if it were not for the fact that they don't have enough songs to discard anything.
Swiftly forgetting that one, Vote, Baby, Vote is their equivalent to an interlude and was used as a commercial to get young Americans to vote. Franky, their campaign really shows up Madonna's are-my-gays-here-to-make-me-look-rebellious counterpart.
Tasty keyboards with beats traced back to the flashy clicks of clubccentric jewels such as World Clique and Good Beat are found on the sadly more laid back Electric Shock. 'Move your body, feel the music' is probably writer's block, but the pulsating groove is thick-not-fast and injected with a dribbling bass ebbing with their flow, plus it is spiked with the same sizzling keyboard and trancey inflections found on fan-favourite What Is Love?.
Despite Kier's mad, shrieking soul mama shtick of 'damn that's my jam' and the best African chanting since Dannii Minogue saved world hunger with her anthem Hakuna Matata, Two Clouds Above Nine is just a slightly more snappy and emphatic twist on the same formula used on I Won't Give Up. There is no denouncing how good it sounds, but if you're wanting a song to actually sing then this ain't it. 'Slip off your views, take off your mind' shows the band still full of eccentric charm.
Pouncing at you kindly ('kiss me, you fool' indeed), Pussycat Meow is one of the daftest songs they ever recorded and still sounds ahead of its time almost 20 years later. Vampish and vivacious, Kier rarely sounded this unquenchably lost in music. Worth seeking out are the sleek and purr-fectly indulgent, extensively extended edits to be found. Proof that this band are uncoverable.
Given a hard time in most reviews, I Had A Dream I Was Falling Through A Hole In The O-Zone Layer actually functions as a more-than-just-solid album cut with Kier's vocals reaching rapture, and a piano leaving its own trail of guilty fantasia. 'We breathe the future, and yes we're choking' sure makes a change from 'your groove I do deeply dig'. It's equator-stretching middle-8 is a delight in itself - 'come on, give a damn and take a stand'. 'Convenience is the enemy' doesn't refer to its duration - it's very worthy of all its 5:39 entirity, and has stood the test of time surprisingly well as originally I wrote this one off as a kill-joy.
Tunneling deep with a sensational mechanic funk-grunge plunge, Fuddy Duddy Judge is my balls-out favourite song here. Kier's going off on one about abandoning our social concious in favour of convenience, and every lyric is to be tasted like savouring a glass of fine wine. 'History is a matter of opinion'.
Skippy dance doodle with more organs than the Red Cross, Thank You Everyday is literally a walk in the park for them. The single package, with all sensational remixes done by themselves, saw a series of irresistable coda's in each of them and is an essential purchase I cannot recommend enough. Rising straight to the very top, this is a pop masterstroke. Reverberating 'hi-higher, hi-higher' with dashings of darting piano keys and other flavoursome tastebuds of melody all making it a trifle deee-gorgeous.
Below: Thank You Everyday (The Spirit Mixes Parts 1 & 2)
The jumpy rhythms on Rubber Lover make it endlessly superior to, say, Christina Aguilera's Elastic Love. Taut, ribbed, probably flavoured and beyond frisky, even the bass sounds so tight it could snap.
Perhaps they could have been stricter, Come On In, The Dreams Are Fine is my first choice above Two Clouds, but they have 3 songs all skipping to the same vibes. With only 3 studio albums, I'll clasp onto everything I can get from these guys, but at track 13 I would have kept this and made I Won't Give Up, Two Clouds Above Nine, this song here or Electric Shock into faster dance-that's-my-jams or else B-sides.
A tantalising Kier transcends her disco delivery and smoulders into a screen siren chanteuse on Love Is Everything, the only ballad they ever recorded (Deep-Ending was disco veritgo not a ballad), exploring love's lust, rapture and agony. Vintage Mariah, Christina, Amy and all those other tramps can't sing like this.
I try to not overuse the word, but this is an album of 'jams', yes thank you Mam, Kier. I might not want to dance to their experiments (there is sensible binge drinking for that), but the Chic-lite fizz of Heart Be Still, the cutesy pounce of Pussy Cat Meow,the guilt-provoking grind of Fuddy Duddy Judge,the intense gyration of Rubber Lover and Thank You Everyday's sunkissed breaziness are almost rare-sounding flourishes of their inimitable skyward, deformulized disco determination at its best. Even the piano downer Love Is Everything is divine. Dance if you want to, I would just call it brilliant noise. The inevitable focus on Lady Miss Kier is well-deserved and then some but the autuer Towa Tei really raised the bar with his elegant conceptions being equally as ripe, and it's just a shame that there were not 2 or 3 Good Beats to sell it to the Groove Is In The Heart crowd. Not as songful as World Clique, it is definately more artful. The songs themselves are simply more open-ended than before, which is probably why both Thank You and Pussy each have multiple climaxes and glorious re-edits that sound just-as-good-if-not-better, essentially being the same elements simply re-arranged or stretched and teased into something gunkier. Grooveful, lighthearted and with serious verve.
Diva Incarnate is a massive fan of Deee-Lite: so much so that to review their classive debut album World Clique is just a tad overwhelming and, well, kind of puts a lot of pressure on a writer to articulate sometimes purely visceral reasons as to why something is one of the most important albums to have influenced their pop aesthetic. Enough nonesense then, their third and final studio set Dewdrops In The Garden was nowhere near as immediately succinct and unflinching in it's innate explosion of charisma and innovation, but stands a chance at claiming to be just as impressive as their landmark debut.
It also saw key member Towa Tei dropping out the troup and merely producing one track. In his place steps in DJ Ani (pronounced 'on e' of course), who later justifies himself with a remix of a track from their sophomore album, called Don't Give Up. The grooves on this album are more sensual, Kier proves herself as a fluid rapper, and they almost clinch themselves several early 90s potential dance hits yet fail to properly exploit such poossibilities by admirably sticking to the oozing rave trips and their label Elekra by this point clearly weren't giving a fuck either.
Say Ahhh... is the mellow opener, a buttery-dripping rap from Kier and her most natural vocal yet. 'Take off your shirt, I'll take off my bra, keep holding on until you say ahhh'. Kier's final withdrawing 'yeah, yeah ... yeah' could finish anybody off.
Mind Melt is effectively an interlude, a poem written by Ani's Father. I still recite the emphatic delivery of 'come around, come around' to this day.
Bittersweet Loving is the first of two emphatic shots at achieving a genuine ubiquitous dance hit that ought to have joined the ranks of Haddaway, Urban Cookie Collective and Sybil. Kier and fellow member DJ Dmitri's relationship had severed by this point and Kier's emancipation is gigantic as she sings rapturously 'I've never felt so free before' with a vocal authority second to none:
The jiving 'put some sugar and stir it up' is even more uplifting. If the album version doesn't quite hit the spot (it's probably too dreamy for its own good in places), the Todd Terry mix is favoured sometimes by myself for it's lethal sharpness.
Above: some 2-dollar tranny whore earns her cash - what self-respecting gays are giving away their drinks money?
The elasticated roaming bass on River of Freedom and it's hallucinatory trance make it my favourite Deee-Lite track ever. Kier's vocals are heartfelt and lush ('the sails are made from our dreams, there will be better days down stream ... we've been building ship for years, because the river is made from tears'). It just has that vanishing point all good dance tracks should have, where you feel completely immersed and distracted. It flits from detail to fascinating and ultimately meaningless detail. Crucially, the melancholy flashing past is anchored by a stunning tune and sounds so simple a zonked zombie can relate to the pathos. What is a shame is the track ends up getting tangled up in its final minute, although I do enjoy the burping bass continuing to rev itself up even if it's sort of running on empty.
Below: Lady Kier does her thing at Wigstock debuting the song Somebody.
For years I kind of despised Somebody - I thought it was just nothing. Years later and I'm completely drugged by Kier's leadership vocals - she truly comits herself to this one, which is more of a hardcore vocal track than anything else. Perhaps because Towa's insanely unique production has taken the stabelizers off, this track is examplary of how distinctly different Deee-Lite are here. Again the track ends as if being mixed into another track, except it's being 'mixed' into a final minute of simply concluding.
The jazzy A Tribe Called Quest-esque When You Told Me You Loved Me is bizarrely the closest they come to reaquainting themselves to their signiture style. It's hard to resist Kier's persona which is smudged all over this like being french kissed by a million drag queens at once.
Keir's languid rap on the oozing Stay In Bed Forget The Rest (a subtle pun I didn't get until a few years ago) actually sounds like a dimmed light. Pssst-ing for attention. Fall asleep with paradise, dreams of tahiti'.
The ultimate telephone song, Call Me is the album's What Is Love or Pussycat Meow, except it's a bedroom chill-out and not an explicity flamboyant dancefloor jam like their previous doodlebeat tracks. I love how Kier starts off a one-sided conversation responding to what we can obviously guess involves getting the subtle brush off, before turning the tables when at the finish it is the person at the other end of the line getting their wires cross and Kier then gives this love interest the 'I'll call you' kiss-off herself. The sherbet-frosted ambience filters all the right settings courtesy of Towa Tei. Fans of Kylie's GBI might be interested to hear the true partnership for such perfection.
The evaporating blissfulness of Music Selecta Is The Soul Reflecta is a humming throb with Kier's delicious deadpan refrain, 'give is a beat, slammin and jumpin'.
Sampladelic is a convincing update of Deee-Lite Theme, 'catch the relic, the sound is sampladelic, yeah' excites with almost as much fervor as 'from the global village in the age of commication did' back in 1990. It really could/should have been the opener.
Bring Me Your Love contains the album's best trash-dance fantasy hook:
I was in the checkout line Checking out the mighty fine By the time I got to the parking lot I took home more than what I boughtYou’re my tenderness My chocolate drop Don’t you ever let your good lovin stop
And yet it's pace is fashionably stop-start (before it became properly utilized by top 40 dance songs), which kills its catchy potential and this is probably why it remained a club release only.
Above: since the official video for Picnic has been disabled from being linked, here is a live performance of Somebody, a track given high status from the Dewdrops era.
First single Picnic In The Summertime, possibly one of the most underrated summer song, is track 12. Casual music buyers will have switched off by now, but the soul mama come rapper invites you to 'come at me like a panther 'cause you know yes is my answer'.
Arguably even better is Apple Juice Kissing, with a Clash sample and more immediate rhyme and 'smack on my lips, apple juice kissing makes me roll my hips' being a miles tastier hook.
The fidgety momentum of Party Happening People reminds me slightly of a bafflingly huge UK #1 song called Doop.
DMT is another trippy episode with an under the influence foggy mise en scene.
Above: performances of Music Selecta and Bring Me Your Love from the 1994 Rise Up tour.
What Is This Music is a 30 second outro before they blow their chances with Bring Me Your Love yet again as a remixed hidden track. Oh well, they certainly did try and Dewdrops In The Garden is totally worth the initial disappointment of not being as good as World Clique as it's an amazing album that should be judged on its own terms - they were a new band by this point. Sometimes feeling as if you really need to be taking the same drugs, their florescent fashion is worth gasping at whatever your sensations.
An ever so slightly mispalced sequencing and occaisionally mis-judged mixes regarding track durations almost distract from Deee-Lite giving us perhaps their most committed and trying performance yet. Kier kept her heartfelt groove and the rivers of applejoice kisses prove they still had a thirst for beats. The pop momentum is patchy, which could have been avoided, but Kier's voice - ambitious, ebullient, moist and full of femme - is their tour deee force that any diva who sets out to create inclusive dance music had better go for every time out.
Okay: next post simply has to have files attached - "on our way, on our way" indeed!
I am busy having a nervous breakdown over uni, but I shall get down with my blog after an essay has been suitable strangled. Before I write anthing about Deee-Lite, I once met the lady herself, who then poured me a vodka cranberry from her DJ booth when I told her I had work the next day! At the end of the night I was being chatted up and stalked home by a tranny (I forget what gender they were going for though).
