Customer Reviews

Dirty Dancing

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

even the title of swayzak's third full length offering is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the 80s. this time around swayzak has almost completely abandoned thier minimalistic tech-house grooves for an disc full of electro style songs . . . yes, songs. all but three tracks are vocal driven and 'dirty dancing' comes across as a full fledged electro-pop disc. now, as a person who was a teenager during the 80s new wave movement, the recent revival of 80s electro synth-pop (miss kittin & the hacker, adult, ladytron) is cute and kitschy yet somewhat tired all at the same time. but this is swayzak we're talking about and they breathe new life into the already tired genre of electro. although it's not immediately accessible as earlier works, diehard swayzak fans will still be able to dig deep and appreciate the tightly structured, deeply rhythmic tracks offered up here.

`make up your mind' opens the disc and starts off sounding like a typical swayzak vocal track: dreamy female vocals, deep dubby bass, synth effects and 4-on-the-floor beats. Then about a minute into the track it takes on a Heaven 17-ish spin and ends up sounding like an 80s new wave song. Even the lyrics ("You're going out with her tonight and that's not good."), about an open relationship gone bad, are 80s inspired.

'in the car crash' is Front 242 industrial from the driving (no pun intended) percussive beats to the processed Richard 23-ish vocals and morbidly twisted lyrics. it's kind of a love song gone bad. a guy dying in a car crash thinking only of his girlfriend.

'celcius', the first instrumental track, is a green album Orbital sound a-like. close your eyes and you'll be hard pressed to tell if it's Orbital or swayzak you're listening to.

'i dance alone' (my personal favorite) is more industrial strength dance music. yet its hyper-drive percussion and synthesizer reminds me of the darker 80s industrial artists like Borghesia or A Split Second.

'the punk era', the second instrumental track, starts off a bit cheesy until it veers off into pure late night trance with it's vocal refrain "get up" inspiring you to get up and dance.

'sob 1' is the only track that's close to past swayzak. a hauntingly beautiful deep house track until four minutes in it turns into industrial trance. then clair deitrich croons in french over the beats and i swear it veers off into stereolab territory. i kid you not!

'ping pong' is swayzak's kraftwerk tribute. steady 4/4 beats and kraftwerk-esque vocals saying "Ping . . . Pong". A wonderful close to a suprisingly wonderful disc.

although this is a radical departure in what swayzak fans have grown to know, love and expect from this talented duo 'dirty dancing', albeit a bit commercial, is swayzak in top form. A must have for swayzak or electro loving fans.

In the European electronic/dance scene rediscovering the 80s is no longer news (you havent heard of "electroclash"? You should..)..
Swayzak tread older grounds in a very refreshing way in this album.."In the car crash" will revive the fondest memories of your 80's electrogoth days , and if you werent existent back then no worries, it will break you into a sound you'll find hard to resist.
This album is by no means a monotonous affair of retro-sounding synthies. It shifts with ease from innofensive techno to trip hop and thrusts back forward to tracks that pay hommage to Anne Clark.
Curiously enough for such an album there are no fillers. Instead, the whole thing is an honest effort to keep the music interesting and flowing. Swayzak are a proposition that will smoothly fit in an alternative club as well as a mainstream dance club. And that, i think, says it and sums it up all. Nice, very nice indeed.

Sometimes thing are hard to label, Swayzak is hard to label, it's not techno, it's certainly not house, it's not ambient, it's not electro it's whatever. It is however very minimal clear cut tech, with a hint of electro (80's) and even goth (track #3)

I have to be honest, I never was a big Swayzak fan but this album it just excellent, every track is a mini electro diamond. It's excellent stuff you want to play after you got home from a night out but still have an hour of energy left.

Go get it, this probably will be a classic

Great stuff from former minimalistic tech-house masters now dabbling in the nu-electro scene. Better than the last album, Swayzak really turns the heat up in a track in its last 2:00 or 3:00 minutes; so if your not satisfied with the first minute or so of the song: just wait, the surprises are coming. The tracks here cover many styles so the album never gets monotonous. Plenty of good guest performances, especially from the girl in Adult in "I Dance Alone". Progressive and original. Recommended.

Made in Britain, electro-house duo Swayzak are a respected force on the London house scene as the men behind the collective mask, James Taylor and David Brown, are aware. Their first album Snowboarding in Argentina was released in 1998 and won the best album of the year award from US dance mag Mixer. It was followed by Hinawari in 2000 and a number of 12" releases. The new album Dirty Dancing has just been released on the !K7 label. This roller-coaster ride through electronic minimalism will shroud you in ecstasy and then bring you down slowly. The journey from faded, eighties pop anthems, such as The Punk Era to computer-titillated cool in Sob 1 will drag you from the chill out room onto the dance floor. Tom Waits meets Cabaret Voltaire in In The Car Crash, where the narrator is still thinking about his love while he's in a car wreck, pure Waitsian, twisted macabre with lyrics like: "Blood on the window, but you're always on my mind." This technoid experience is preceded by Buffalo Seven in which the narrator moans the lyrics over the music like a happy (...), who has just been seduced by the hypnotic vocals of Clair Dietrich on the opening track Make Up Your Mind. By the end of the album I felt like I'd been lifted off my seat, seduced on the dance floor and then gently caressed at the end of the night. Beat that!

It's been two years since Swayzak gaves us Himawari and Dirty Dancing ( title taking from Patrick Swayze one hit movie Dirty Dancing and still continue in the mock of the actor, I will assume) comes as the big brother of any musical genre out there. Brave new musical steps are combined with classic Swayzak sounds to bring a combo of 80's style synths, electropop and minimal house. Tracks like... Make up your mind, In the car crash, I dance Alone & Half way to yesterday, bring a more friendly dance oriented feeling to the album and it's less cold and dark as the previous ones. I really enjoy it indeed!

A few years ago they produced an album("Snowboarding in Argentina")that got the reward "best dance album of the year" or something like that in a magazine. They followed up with "Himawari" which in my opinion was even better.
More and more people discovers this type of techhouse/minimal/electro/synthpop/dub music so what could you expect from a group that begings to getting more and more popular among the "normal" music listeners? Of course you expect a more easy listening album that tries to reach as many as possible.
So is that what you get here then? The answer is no.
I'm afraid that many Swayzak fans will get disappointed with this one. And Swayzak takes a huge risk here if their primary goal is to sell as much possible. It seems like they don't care though.
This album is raw and hard compared to their previous releases.
Minimal techno/dub meets 80's Electro/syntpop and the result is awesome.
It's not made for the Ibiza-dancefloor and afternoon cocktail parties. This CD is made for the serious Electro/Synthpop/Minimalism listener.

If you like 80's electro/synthpop/bla.bla like Tiga, Vitalic, Miss Kitten, Goldenboy, Fiscerspooner, Ladytron, Cybotron or/and minimal techno ala Maurizio, Basic Channel, Fluxion and other chain reaction releases this CD will not disappoint you.
I love both of the genres so for me this album was a blast.

At times, Swayzak really impresses me with perfect microhouse tracks, or brilliant tech house classics like "Make Up Your Mind". At other times, Swayzak puts out material that belies their compositional skill and sounds *almost* generic. At their best, Swazak is an influential force, but they are sometimes uneven. "Dirty Dancing" is definitely uneven. There are some absolutely killer tracks like "Make Up Your Mind", "In the Car Crash", and "I Dance Alone." Then there are others like "Celcius" and "Buffalo Seven" - decent tracks by most standards, but not when you compare them with Swayzak's finer moments.

I've read some criticism of the tracks I pointed out as being exemplary, but they draw a lot of unfair comparisons with electroclash groups like Fischerspooner and Adult. I think Swayzak is aiming for something much more understated. Rather than the gaudy glitz of Fischerspooner, Swayzak displays a tasteful minimalism. Thus, I don't hear "I Dance Alone" as a mediocre attempt at electro-crossover, but a rather witty statement on that style.

These high points certainly justify purchasing "Dirty Dancing." I wouldn't say it's Swayzak's finest, but it has a lot of good moments and more than a few great ones. If I seem critical of the album, it's mostly because I think it fell short of its potential. Swayzak has yet to create their masterpiece, but it's coming. In the meantime, enjoy "Dirty Dancing."

I enjoyed the Swayzak tracks used in Sander Kleinenberg's 2001 Global Underground Nubreed mix and in Sasha's 2005 Fundacion NYC effort, so I sought out one of their albums. I got DIRTY DANCING and the result was a bitter disappointment.

The Swayzak tracks I had heard earlier were minimal tech-house stylings, appropriate just as much for a chillout home ambience as the dance floor. On most of DIRTY DANCING, however, the duo are evidentally trying to make themselves a rival to contemporary electroclash acts like Fischerspooner. The treated male vocal (Carl Finlow) and robotic female delivery (Nicola Kuperus) on "I Dance Alone" sounds like it stepped out of a Sprockets sketch. The guest vocalist's British-accented singing on "Take My Hand" is an embarassment. "In the Car Crash", like The Normal's "Warm Leatherette" and His Name Is Alive's "Crashed Up on the Corner" eroticizes fatal automobile accidents, but in the worst flashbacks to 1980s West Berlin.

It's not all completely terrible, as "Sob 1", "The Punk Era", "Ping Pong" are faithful to the tech-house genre, and "Celcius" is a straight-up progressive house tune. Nonetheless, most of the record is pretty bad, and I cannot recommend it.