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August 10, 2018 - Turbo Recordings
Turbo “Home of the Hits” Recordings will be turning/has already turned 20 years old, and they are celebrating a little. Born in 1998 within the frozen paradise of Montreal, the label itself stands thick, tall, and true as a pillar of true dance content. According to legend, it wasn’t until 2000 that Turbo’s helm Tiga played his part alongside Jori Hulkkonen to give birth to the piece of music that would change everything (basically).
Unable to take a family holiday to India and not content to build snow castles and eat tire d’érable all winter, Tiga called upon friend and future super collaborator Jori Hulkkonen to play a NYE party at SONA (RIP). The pair decided to make some tracks, as pairs often do, in Tiga’s small home studio. Several units of time and covered pop tracks later, the ‘Sunglasses At Night’ cover was made, and what is made can never be unmade. According to Tiga, Tiga didn’t like it very much. I also didn’t like it very much. That didn’t stop german DJ Hell of International Deejay Gigolo Records +more fame from liking it. Cue the rest of Germany liking it, the rest of Europe liking it, and then the rest of everyone everywhere else liking it. The rest is history, and history that needed to happen.
Tiga and Turbo Recordings spent the next 10 years releasing 50 releases leading up to the 10 year anniversary and a remix release of ‘Sunglasses At Night’ featuring work from Alter Ego, D.I.M., and Popof. Things were kicked into a higher gear for the next 10 years, seeing the creation of the Twin Turbo sub-label that has since released over 50 of it’s own releases, and Turbo Recordings doubling their release count. Now, at release 201, there is a new remix release of ‘Sunglasses At Night.’
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UK musical producers Dense & Pika are veteran Turbo re-workers and are first to take a swing at ‘SAN.’ The result is an airy and open techno trip. The vocals are mostly intact, sitting on top of an alarm-drone bass and driving percussion. The tide of the track ebbs and flows in a fairly linear fashion with mechanical blips dotting the water here and there. The heavily altered voice of Tiga saying “at night” cuts in like a cheese grater, sprinkling its auditory parmesan throughout.
Dimitiri Veimar from Russia, another Turbo staple, takes the party down a dark alley, a place where sunglasses are surely a hindrance. One foot of the track toes the line of falling in the silly-spooky, but the other foot is firmly planted in the cool and collected realm of the sinister-serious. It is a hard electro track that works well to bring the original cover into the modern times.
The final cut comes from apparent mystery producer Techno Seleba, but after 45 seconds of internet sleuthing, I am mostly convinced that the previous remixer got to have two goes on the ‘SAN’ ride. I’ll keep the secret though because this is my favorite of the bunch. The party has gone from the dark alley down into the catacombs. Hardly any of the lyrics remain, replaced by a head thumping kick and blown out tube percussion. The track is unforgiving, but less in a beat-down way and more of a tribal dance way. It leaves nothing but the desire for more.
Long live Techno. Long live Tiga. Long live Turbo. 🍍