Tribute to 95 NORTH – Selected & Mixed by AMATEUR AT PLAY
95 North (or any one of the roughly 10 aliases or so they’ve used during careers that span over two decades) consists of Doug Smith and Richard Payton, two DJs from the USA. In the photo above, Richard’s on the right and Doug is on the left. By their own admission, they’re not the most famous names in house music.
But that doesn’t bother them in the slightest. Nor does it bother me. And frankly, nor should it bother you.
TRACKLIST
01. 95 North – Forever Underground (Ambient Mix)
02. 95 North – Jazz Ascension (Red Dub)
03. Johnny Corporate – Sunday Shoutin’ (Erick’s Subliminal Mix)
04. Michael Procter – Paradise (95 North Deep Vocal Mix)
05. Ken Christensen Feat. Alexander East – Exposed (95 North Dub)
06. 95 North Presents Da Hooligans – Who’s Hoo? (Dub)
07. 95 North Productions – The Journey (Caffeine Mix)
08. Janice Franklin – Shattered Love (Unreleased Caffeine Mix)
09. 95 North Feat. Sabrynaah Pope – Hold On (Louie’s King Street Dub)
10. Groove Patrol – Lost In The Groove (Deal Mix)
11. 95 North – Funk With Me
12. 95 North Presents Da Hooligans – Brazil Seat
13. 95 North Feat. Laura Harris – Bring Back The Love (London To DC Dub)
14. 95 North Feat. Lynn Lockamy – Hangin’ On (Caffeine Mix)
15. 95 North Presents Da Hooligans – Do I Do?
16. 95 North – I Need You
17. Scram – Jump & Sing (Hard Metro Mix)
18. Groove Patrol – Need Your Love (Grand Dub)
19. 95 North – Soon To Be Free (New Dub)
20. 95 North – Let Yourself Go (Moodymanc’s Basement Dub)
… continued from top
For me, these two guys are in the same league as the likes of Mood II Swing. Infact, it’s because of Lexis’ tribute to Mood II Swing from back in 2013 that I started this project in the first place. Like Mood II Swing, 95 North have a strong discography consisting of a mixture of vocal tunes, instrumentals and dubs. Like Mood II Swing, 95 North have quite a few remixes to their name. And like Mood II Swing, 95 North seemed capable of making music that tapped into the zeitgeist of its time whilst still retaining a trademark sound. You just KNEW it was them when one of their records came on…
So instead, I’m now doing no less than THREE mixes and using 80 of their tracks. Two of these mixes are already online and can be found on my Soundcloud page, and the final one will be going up at the start of December. Tracklists are on the blog. In the meantime, I have put together this exclusive mix for Music Is My Sanctuary, combining my favourites from the tributes, some of the tunes that didn’t make the final cut – yep, even with 80 records, there were still some that had to be dropped – and a couple of different versions, such as Louie Vega’s epic dub of “Hold On”.
This mix also contains an unreleased track called “Shattered Love”. This was their first ever track (although Strictly Rhythm decided to release other records of theirs first) and this version by Janice Franklin is actually a demo that Richard gave me personally and to this day, remains unreleased. So with the knowledge you’re listening to some house music history, why don’t you give this a listen?
Thank you to Lexis for his support on this project.
No Comment