A record that applies the razor blade-wielding editing approach of the Latin Rascals (see O/B #09 and O/B #12) to the disco-sample-based house template of the early-/mid-90s (see O/B #23), Soundhack #1 was Frank Timm aka Sound Stream’s first project, and all you can say about that is ‘Wow'. What a way to start your career!

Timm takes the opening riff of 'It’s A Love Thing’ by The Whispers, ties it to the operating table and goes at it with a scalpel, slicing out any trace of The Whispers themselves while zoning in on the micro-timing that gives the track its essential, irresistible funk.

Contemporary with the arrival of French Touch in 1997, it feels like a mistake to put them in the same boat – listen to Soundhack side by side with early Thomas Bangalter (‘Spinal Scratch’) or Alan Braxe (‘Vertigo’) and you might spot some similar-sounding passages, but the difference in stance, execution and overall effect is undeniable.

Of course that hasn’t stopped the odd hot (wrong) take:

This is one of the many superior records I first heard played by Andrew James Gustav in a rooftop flat in West Oxford circa 2009. Never one to shy away from a challenge, he included the A2 track in one of his earliest recorded mixes, and I remember being impressed by how smoothly he made it fit.

Also not being one to shy away from a challenge, and thinking how clever it would be to mix the cut-up and distilled essence of disco with disco itself, I decided to play this at the O/B party this series is based on, with, I have to say, rather less success. Top tip: if you’re thinking of mixing together highly-engineered beat tracks with highly-unquantized disco, just don’t!

Soundhack - Untitled (Soundhack, 1997)

(Discogs)

Note: this is an entry in the Track-By-Track series for my mix for O/B.

Track-By-Track is a series that looks back at records you will have heard in my mixes, one by one in the order they were played. Who made them, and when? How did I come across them? And what do they make me feel?