Boogie Friday
In the geography of House music history the city of Baltimore probably comes a long way behind such hothouses as Chicago and Detroit, but that was the home of DJ/production team The Basement Boys so named because they did their early recordings in a 4-track studio in their basement. That primitive set-up is apparent on this original mix of "It's Over Now", the 1989 debut single of Ultra Naté (that's her real name) with its basic drum machine which seems to have a hard time keeping the beat properly. There is a more polished, later version on the other side of this 12" which technically I prefer but it doesn't have the charm of this which has the same home-made quality and cheapo drum sound of early Chicago House. It's a whopping 9:53 minutes long too.
This was a fairly big club hit, particularly in Europe, but Naté had her thunder stolen somewhat by another Basement Boys-produced track a year later, Crystal Water's "Gypsy Woman" which was massive and, ironically, a song Waters had originally written for Naté but ended up recording herself because the Boys liked her demo of it.
According to Naté, her producers didn't really know what they were doing at the time and there is a certain experimental, "making it up as we go along" vibe to her debut album "Bluenotes In The Basement" which doesn't always work but is interesting. That's another one that's out of print unfortunately, so is "The Best Remixes, Vol. 1" which has this mix on it, so you're shit out of luck on both counts. Sorry.
[Download]
It's Over Now (Original Classic Mix) - Ultra Naté
5 Comments:
Here's my theory:
They only had one razor blade in the studio, and they were using it already for another purpose.
So they couldn't edit this down.
-j
what did you call that? original something mix? I hope that means just plain old original track. There are so many mixes of so many songs these days it's necessary to know which is what who when... Anyhow, it's good 'cause it's imperfect. Imperfection is next to...well, thanks again.
My 12" calls it the "Original Classic Mix", the other side is the "1989 With Attitude Mix"
I bought it in the UK when it first came out there, it the other side that got played in the clubs.
I have been looking for this for ages! Thank you.
I remember getting Ultra's Blue Notes in the Basement album (which I had first heard from an old Chicago zine "Thing") and playing it quite a bit back in 1992. I really like "Is It Love" and "Scandal" as well as "It's Over Now."
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