“Gecko”
by Rex the Dog
(Hundehaus)
British dance producer Jake Williams started putting out singles
under the once-secret alias Rex the Dog four years ago, but he’s just
now gotten around to releasing an album, much of which is older tracks
edited down to pop length. The standout is this track, which sounds as
precisely circa-’83 electro-pop as he’s capable of making it. The only
vocal is a dreamy-sounding woman cooing, “Baby, ba-ba-baby, don’t you
know I live for your touch?” The bass line is Lee Press-On Nails stiff,
as is the beat, and the keyboards are so effortlessly melodramatic
(Yaz! New Order! Chaka!) that you might wonder from where he sampled it
all.
“Boyfriend (Pete
Hammond Mix)”
by Alphabeat
(Copenhagen/EMI, UK)
Speaking of ’80s throwbacks, Alphabeat make a repeat appearance in
this column, after their astoundingly giddy “Fascination.” This track
will make anyone with even a trace of fondness for jelly shoes
positively froth. The song is your standard UK-pop pep
rally—”He’s not your boyfriend, he’s mine,” goes the
chorus—but choosing Hammond to rework it is a stroke of
genius.
Hammond was one of the main mixers for the late-’80s production
giants Stock Aitken Waterman (Rick Astley, Kylie Minogue’s
“Loco-Motion,” etc). This remix sounds exactly, absolutely like that
stuff, but here, for some reason, the chintzy synth FX, the canned
house beat with Latinesque electrofiligrees, the chopped-up vocals
played with a slight stutter (“C-C-C-C-Crazy! In love! Crazy! In
love!”) all sound not like cheese or a retread but like a love letter
to an earlier, more innocent era. I know, I know—everything
sounds that way when that’s when you grew up. But the vocal is what
sells it. The singing on vintage SAW tends to the chirpy, the stagy;
the songs were pop with an ear to its own future status as camp, with
vocals to match. But Alphabeat’s Stine Bramsen sings with more real
yearning than did SAW’s young androids (Donna Summer is another thing),
and the tension between her and the pings and whistles makes this a
treasure. 