1990s dance music covers: reviled, acclaimed, maimed and shamed

August 14, 2009 1:21 PM

Free Friday Frantic (Music) Fun: Ergo Phizmiz & The Midnight Florists cover five 1990s chartbusting, dancefloor filling smash hits with arrangements of acoustic, electronic, homemade, and toy instruments. [More musical mischief inside]

The five tracks are hosted on WMFU's Free Music Archive, discussed last year when the FMA started up. This EP is via Music for Maniacs, who previously was the source for a link to the J Marimba Ponies performing Khachaturian's Sabre Dance.

Original versions:
Deee-Lite - "Groove Is In The Heart" (1990)
Culture Beat - "Mr Vain" (1993)
Eiffel 65 - "Blue (Da Ba Dee)" (1999) (plus the intro to Fresh Prince of Bel Air thrown in for good measure) (1990)
C & C Music Factory - "Gonna Make You Sweat" (1990)
Lou Bega - "Mambo No 5" (1999)
Snap - "Rhythm Is A Dancer" (1992)

Ergo Phizmiz was discussed previously, first for his groups cover of "White Light, White Heat" (the songs can now be found on this newer blog post, which also includes 9 covers of Aphex Twin and 6 modern R&B [Arff & Beef] covers), and later for his collaborative work on the 14-part podcast about the history and practice of sound collage and mashups.

Still looking for more audio oddities from Ergo Phizmiz and associates? His discography on F.M.A. includes:
- five scenes from Cervantes' "Don Quixote" in an imaginary ballet setting
- 55 minutes of instrumental music from the forthcoming 10 part Ergo Phizmiz radio-art cycle "The House of Dr Faustus"
- three short pieces of "personal agitprop" that formed as a "result of increasingly frequent comings to verbal blows with intrusive and arrogant neighbours"
- a pilot for a project-in-progress in children's radio that features Ergo's daughters
- a short little something that is a tribute to Nicolas Cage

Oh, and almost 6 hours from the Collected Radio Works by Ergo Phizmiz.

posted by filthy light thief (7 comments total)

Gonna Make You Sweat is just...... wow.
posted by Dr-Baa at 1:36 PM on August 14

Is this like some kind of Senor Coconut thing?
posted by snofoam at 1:48 PM on August 14

Yeah "Groove is in the..." left be begging for no more.
posted by longsleeves at 1:50 PM on August 14

*me*
posted by longsleeves at 1:50 PM on August 14

can't blame you for losing the capacity to speak/write coherently after listening to that, longsleeves.

To each his/her own, I suppose. I'm listening to the last track (Rhythm is a...) now, and I find myself thinking, Frank Zappa did this kind of stuff a long time ago?
posted by yiftach at 2:05 PM on August 14

If you're feeling like it's good but a bit too eclectic/zany, you may want to check the Don Quixote or House of Dr Faustus stuff. It's all instrumental, and I was listening to it for a good while this morning. His children's radio piece is cute and less chaotic, too.

But if you want more of the layered music sound, Hecuba (and the half-Hecuba side-project Hazm) might be to your liking.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:31 PM on August 14

Okay. I will now toddle back over to the thesixtyone thread, where there is actually music I want to listen to.

Amusing conceit, but they didn't carry it through with enough zazz to make it repeat listenable. And isn't that the point of music? If you can only stand to hear it once...
posted by hippybear at 2:32 PM on August 14