Better known to fans of dance music as 2 Many DJs, the Belgian brotherly duo have been DJing together with critical acclaim from those that know for some years now. Their DJing career took a turn toward mainstream appreciation with the release of albums that saw the Dewaele brothers cut and paste together records that ordinarily would remain totally unrelated - a particular favourite was combining seminal rock tracks from the likes of Nirvana with girly dance/R&B vocals from Destiny’s child and their contemporaries. The result was amusing and 2 Many DJs became an overnight success with student-type revellers, and all the while, the two brothers could also continue with their output as , an altogether more conventional band set-up.
With this in mind, it is easy to see how the idea of making an album of track re-workings was inspired. The tracks are suited better to fans of 2 Many DJs more than they are to purists since they mainly fall into what I’ll loosely term the electro/techno genre, if you can imagine what that would sound like with real drumming and guitars replacing pre-programmed patterns and synths. Needless to say, many of the tracks on the collection started life as highly sought after white labels – it’s likely that most revellers will have already come across 2004’s beefed up version of ‘E Talking’ for example.
The album opens with a weird but wonderful cover of Daft Punk’s early and seminal track ‘Teachers’. Without losing any of the original’s magic, heavy drumming replaces the original’s jacking house beat whilst likewise the punchy stabs are done with a brash strum of the guitar. The vocoded voice is also mirrored with a similar one but the record’s role-call takes in the likes of T Rex and The Clash rather than saluting the greats of house music as Daft Punk’s did. It is clever and amusing in equal measures and dare I say it, the album is worth buying for this track alone.
Elsewhere, some of the best tracks from the band’s ‘Any Minute Now’ are given the 2 Many DJs treatment. ‘Miserable Girl’, ‘Accidents and Compliments’ and ‘Compute’ are all raucous numbers certain to rejuvenate even the most tired set of revellers but the prize for standout re-working has to be awarded to ‘I Love Techno’ It is a blips and bleeps affair with a vocal refrain that falsely asserts ‘James Brown is dead’, and a pace that falls just sort of allowing it to be adequately described as techno.
Excitable DJs take note: This compilation is mixed and thus all those hours spent searching for the elusive 12” copies of these tracks weren’t in vain. You’ll still need to put the legwork in if you want to play them out in a club. A nice little album nonetheless.
Rating: 3/5
Release Date: 26th September 2005
Label: PIAS Recordings
Words by: Sarah Chapman
