Back to the old skool

Like many of the people I know that are into house I have fond memories of a certain period in my life. Rewind to 1994, I was in my first job, had money for the first time in my life and was out and about as much as I could physically cope with. I was hanging around record stores, buy the music I wanted 10 records at a time, blagging my way onto the decks in bars for the first time in my life and dreaming up untitledmusic with my flat mate.

Not too long after the first issue of untitledmusic emerged from the mist and landed in record shops up and down the land. We had the finest purveyors of house covered, places like Edinburgh, Middlesbrough, Newcastle, Manchester, Nottingham and London we putting our little fanzine out on their counters giving us the credibility um needed to start getting onto the promo lists we dreamed of; Paper, Toko, Champion, Warp, Classic, 20:20, Nuphonic, Junior Boys Own, Shaboom, Naked, Glasgow Underground, Disfunktion, Under The Counter, Mr Bongo - the list goes on. It saved us a fortune too and we pumped it into printing the fanzine and spreading it further around the UK - life was good!

It's with great nostalgia that I drift back to those days every time one of those names crops up, and even more frequently of late, when one of them returns to the scene with new or remastered material.

First it was Paperecordings, then Toko Records (well almost), followed by Shaboom and Glasgow Underground, and soon I hear Under The Counter too. The latest blast from the past to re merge is Classic Music Company, Luke Solomon and Derrick Carter's house label with a difference. A label I still have plenty of 12's of and have a few digital files from a couple of years ago too!

Funnily enough it was a remastered version of this tune that made me Google them again only to find all sorts on the cards.

To be fair both Luke and Derrick will tell you the label never died it just faded back, but now the labels vast and hugely influential back catalogue has been fully re-mastered and will be made available in digital format for the very first time across all good digital download sites and some rubbish ones too.

"The catalogue will be released in 3 batches – each consisting of over 30 original vinyl EPs and will include tracks and remixes from the likes of Freeform Five, Chris Nazuka, Blaze, Isolee, Rob Mello, Freaks, Nail, JT Donaldson, Metro Area, Brett Johnson, Iduceve, Iz & Diz, Ewan Pearson, SWAG, Honey Dijon, Roy Davis Jnr, Style of Eye, Henrik Schwarz, Trevor Jackson, Mark Farina and many more plus lots of previously unreleased tracks." So the press release goes.

Latest tracks by Classic Music Company

Classic were always a label that challenged convention, their Music For Freaks series could divide a room, and so it's likely to be with the music they re release and in time the new stuff they promise too. And whilst I'm sure the skeptics out there will see this as mostly a money making return, or the old school fans will wish they were returning to vinyl I for one am glad to see a label of this calibre back in the groove. Like the fella's say "House lost it's way", and maybe we're heading back on track with so much good stuff coming from both the old and the new guard!

Links

Classic Music Website

Classic Music Soundcloud

Classsic Music Facebook