Romanthony, or the strange isolation of house music
For the vocalist on one of dance music’s biggest ever hits, Romanthony remained a very elusive character, right up to his tragic death.
Daft Punk collaborations One More Time and Too Long aside, he was probably best known for Hold On, re-released on Roulé (Thomas Bangalter from Daft Punk’s label) in 1999 or R.Hide In Plain Site, a 2000 compilation of some of his better known songs on Glasgow Underground, which briefly promised to take him into the mainstream.
Nevertheless, as 5 Magazine put it in an excellent memorial piece, after Romanthony’s death in 2013, there remained a “strange isolation” around Romanthony.
“Many of the people that knew him before - the ones you would, from afar, identify as his ‘peers’ and colleagues and collaborators - don’t seem to know him now. No one I spoke to knew he was in Austin. They’ve lost touch,” the magazine continued.
Indeed, so far under the radar was Romanthony that news of his death on May 7 2013 didn’t appear until Saturday May 18, almost two weeks later.
One of the reasons for this is Romanthony records simply dried up after One More Time, with his output largely limited to one-off vocal turns on other people’s tracks. He later admitted, in a video interview with Electronic Beats, that the success of One More Time had allowed him to step back from making and promoting his own music and to let Daft Punk’s label, Virgin, take the strain. “That enable me to just be quiet,” he said.
At the same time, Romanthony explained that the advances in music making technology meant that many new producers had moved ahead of him “and I enjoyed listening to the new things coming up”. “I like sitting back,” he added. “My energy isn’t the same, so I don’t want to go in there and fight it.”
Romanthoy also suffered from that most common complaint among US house music pioneers: his back catalogue was all over the place, with songs typically released first on his own Black Male label, then re-released on other, bigger labels, sometimes remixed, sometimes under new names.
For example, the “Classic Vocal” mix of Hold On, which led the song’s Roulé release, is actually the same as the Roman’s Remix version from the 1994 Da’ Change / Hold On 12 inch on Black Male. The version of The Wanderer that I used to hear on Paris radio and assumed was the original, is actually the CD Remix #9. Meanwhile, Discogs names no fewer than 12 versions of Bring U Up, from 1995 to 2012.
It is, in short, a bit of a mess - and all the more so on streaming. But that shouldn’t put you off getting to know Romanthony, truly one of house music’s greatest vocalists and a man who found power in enigma.
Romanthony – Let Me Show You Love
Romanthony may have claimed that his music is “physical pain” but nothing seems further off in Let Me Show You Love, a gem of musical concision. There’s very little to this track: just a beautifully clipped house beat, understated organ stabs, vocal samples and possibly Romanthony’s best vocal hook. What Let me Show You Love proves, though, is you can get away with doing very little, if what you do is so perfectly pitched.
Romanthony – The Wanderer (CD Remix #9)
Was there ever a house track so mystical as The Wanderer? The song, ostensibly an ode to being free, features the intriguing hook “It’s the system that makes you a wanderer” a line I’ve hummed to myself countless times without ever really being able to explain what it means.
Kevin McKay, the founder of Glasgow Underground records and a friend of Romanthony, told Resident Advisor that he once asked Roman if the song was autobiographical, only to get a non-committal answer. “He really liked that kind of mystery,” McKay added. “I only later found out that he had a [ex-]wife and children.”
When I was writing my Daft Punk book, I spoke to McKay about Romanthony and told me that he thinks The Wanderer may have been to do with the breakdown of his familial relationship, or trying to marry the pressures of being a touring DJ with having a family. We will probably never know and it doesn’t really matter. The Wanderer almost goes beyond meaning: the song feels like it is working on a level of pure emotion, with one of Romanthony’s great restrained vocals, sporadically bursting into life to make their point.
Romanthony – The House of God
Despite the thumping bass drum that runs throughout, there’s an incredible peace to this record that reminds me of Sueño Latino or other over-work chill out “classics”. The airy chords are great, testament to Romanthony’s musical upbringing, and there’s a beautiful vocal sample that drifts in and out, as if on the wind. Very little house music can ever approach the elegance of this track.
Romanthony – Bring U Up
It’s pretty much impossible to find modern music that hasn’t been influences by James Brown. And yet attempts to ape Brown’s funk sound almost always end in disaster. Romanthony’s Bring U Up is very much the exception to the rule. It is a lot of fun: from the minute-long introduction, which sees Romanthony philosophising over jazzy piano chords, to the picture-perfect James Brown stabs which arrive one-minute in (“Time to get up” Romanthony advises, wisely), to the singer’s frantic grunting at 1.43, to the afrobeat-esque guitar and piano groove that drives the song, to the excellent chorus.
PS let me know your favourite Romanthony songs in the comments.
Some listening
PLUTO & YKNIECE - WHIM WHAMIEE
WHIM WHAMIEE - capital letters definitely necessary - is the biggest ear worm since Mel and Kim’s Respectable and it has been living in my head since I heard a 30-second clip a couple of weeks ago. Frankly, resistance is pointless. I love the way, too, that the song sounds so utterly dirty, designed for rubbish car speakers and rough-as-nails clubs. That my wife absolutely detests the song is a bonus.
As I am sure I have explained before, the only time I have seen Tortoise live is when they collaborated with Lee “Scratch” Perry for a London gig, the results being artfully perched between the sublime and the ridiculous, as Lee delivered his usual late-career-mode ramblings about spacemen over a Tortoise performance that couldn’t work out if it was the butt of some cosmic joke.
Layered Presence, the next single from the eagerly-awaited new Tortoise album, would have worked very well that fateful day in London, with the production laying loose in a beautifully airy fashion that suggests the influence of dub music in general and Scratch in particular. Leading the way, in a kind of resigned procession, is a melody that sounds like a musical traveler from the future jamming on a Medieval harpsichord.
Play it again sees Joy Orbison turn his hand to 90s electronica, the results suggesting Autechre at their most 90s accessible with a sprinkling of Black Dog and some artfully cut-up vocals. Orbison won’t thank me for mentioning it but there is the slightest touch of Hyph Mngo to play it again’s filtered synth rushes, too, which make the brain rush onward and the heart beat faster in a Pavlovian reaction of dance.
Mallorca’s Júlia Colom has battled with the forces of musical tradition ever since she was a kid, when she won acclaim for her take on the island’s folk traditions. Her debut album Miramar added modern production touches to traditional song, exploring a route that many Spanish artists are walking to considerable success; and her second, Paradis, pushes the boat out ever further, adding electronic touches and what sounds like drum & bass, on the excellent Sa Teva Barca.
Gelosies, the first single from Paradis, is more of a bridge between the two worlds, exploring themes of jealousy and romance over a picked acoustic guitar, claps and a drum machine beat, producing - what do you know? - an excellent pop single, all drama, betrayal and bloodied hooks.
Former Line Noise podcast guests Flabbergast (aka Guillaume Coutu Dumont and Vincent Lemieux) deliver a free-flowing slice of swinging alien house on Meat on Bone, taken from their new EP for Circus Company, Weirdo Active.
Meat on Bone is essentially the soundtrack for being accosted by a late-night UFO, tractor-beamed onto the ship, stripped down and ray gunned but kind of digging it, the touching piano chords suggesting that the aliens are feeling something close to remorse, while the clipped house beat and bass loom speak of an other-wordly species that likes to get down. Weirdo? Certainly. Active? As well.
Stereolab - Fed Up With Your Job
Stereolab’s return to new music has been a Slowdive / Suede-esque success (as opposed to a Happy Mondays-ish nosedive) and it continues apace with the release of Fed Up With Your Job / Constant And Uniform Movement Unknown, as the band embark on a huge American tour.
Fed Up With Your Job - which I’ve seen both adorned with and bereft of a question mark - is the pick of the two. I imagine it was left off Instant Holograms On Metal Film for just being a bit too similar to Esemplastic Creeping Eruption - the keyboard intros are so similar they might have even started off as the same tune - although I probably actually prefer it to Esemplastic… with a garage-rock-leaning guitar fuzz chorus and an ecstatically twinkling mid section that reminds me a little of The Beatles’ It’s All Too Much. Perfectly Stereolab, as ever.
Hans Glader and DJ Q - Right On Time
Well this is cute: jazz-inflected dance producer Hans Glader and bassline maestro DJ Q team up for the kind of dinky 2-step pop number that would have probably topped the British charts in the early 2000s (think Shanks & Bigfoot’s Sweet Like Chocolate). Instead, it bores its way right the way through to my jaded heart. Nice work.
The Playlists
Apple Music users! You can now access my two main playlists of new music: The newest and the bestest and The newest and bestest 2025.
So please do follow them. This is thanks to the new Apple Music tool that allows you to import Spotify playlists, if you’re interested.
Please do keep your opinions coming in about where I should host these playlists. For the moment, they are both also on Spotify: The newest and bestest 2025 and The newest and the bestest. But I personally use Apple Music.