Stay at home and listen to the blues? (edaS Remix)

Sade – The Remix Deluxe
Epic – ESCA 5700
CD, Mini-Album, Compilation, Special Edition, Stereo
Japan, Jun 2, 1993
info

A CD this time, but a fairly rare one (around these parts anyway) with a couple buried treasures. A five track EP, apparently pulled together to promote a 1993 Japanese tour, Sade's The Remix Deluxe was a Japan only release following up the previous year's Love Deluxe album. Only one of the tracks was pulled from their then currently LP though, instead compiling together a handful of nice remixes and B sides onto a single disc.

It's Sade. Do I really need to say anything else to make you want to listen?

The disc opens with two remixes that had been released on vinyl singles the year before. First, Nellee Hooper adds a drum loop and ups the funk a bit on Feel No Pain. Sade's prayer for the strugglers of the Thatcher years is turned into something you could play late at night while you bring things down a little after a hop hop set in the club. (That's kind of a genre of music unto itself in my head actually.) Hooper got his start in the Wild Bunch, the Bristol hip hop/sound system crew that would essentially morph into what became Massive Attack. His name probably shows up a few times somewhere in your music collection's liner notes whether you recognize it or not: after early work with MA and Neneh Cherry, he moved to productions for Bjork, Janet Jackson, Madonna and a million others, making the jump from innovative dance music into the land of pop productions. Sade (both the individual and the band) doesn't get enough credit for some great moments as songwriters. Even without the remix, Feel No Pain is a lovely track with a great lyric. I've run into covers of Sweetest Taboo over the years, but why haven't I ever head someone do a version of this?

Reggae producer Mad Professor reaches back to 1988's Love Is Stronger Than Pride and turns in a remix that thoroughly reworks the mood of the track. Unless you happen to be a dub fanatic, I'd guess Mad Professor might be best known to Americans for dub mixes of Massive Attack's music. If all you know are those booming, brooding, dark and echoing tracks (or even if you've listed to some of the many, many dub albums under his own name), you might be surprised by the sunny, pop reggae take on Sade that he creates here (sharing the fine print remix credits with one of his frequent collaborating musicians, Black Steel). For all his excursions into eccentric dub sounds, Mad Professor has also always been producing fairly mainstream reggae alongside them. He was thoroughly in the mix (no pun intended) of the UK "Lovers Rock" scene (whose name would would be borrowed for Sade's next album in 2000). In fact, he brought in a legit lover's rock star, singer Carroll Thompson, to add new backing harmonies alongside Black Steel while replacing the music with a straightforward reggae bassline, simple drum program, guitar and percussion. They manage to transform the song without taking away too much from Ms. Adu's vocals, which drifted brilliantly over the minimal production of Sade's original version.

Make Some Room is a nearly instrumental, electro-groover and real treat on this disc if you don't already know it. To me, it sounds like it could have been pulled from one of the best of the nearly infinitely number of bootleg Sade house remix 12"s out there in the world, if you could only name what song had been reworked... But it's an original track that first turned up on a single B side in 1988. Look, I'm a big fan, but I can admit to understanding that the band has had moments that justify someone thinking they *occasionally* sound like easy listening jazz elevator jams. But this? They also always had an experimental side as well and I'd LOVE the party where an adventurous DJ slipped this into the mix. 

The Ronin remix of 1988's Paradise throws on some breakbeats and aims for a dance floor. Does "Ronin" in this case mean that it was produced by members of 23 Skidoo?! I think so, so that makes me grin to hear one of my favourite groups, some British, arty post-punkers whose lives changed when they discovered hip hop, make their way into the pop world for a moment (even if this particular mix isn't so life changing). Lastly, Super Bien Total, also from '88, is another instrumental, B side, non-album track, the kind of thing that makes me love 12" singles from that era so much.

So there you go, five paragraphs or so of unnecessary writing. Again, it's Sade. Hopefully you didn't bother reading any of this and skipped right to the music. Enjoy!

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Tracklist

1        Feel No Pain (Nellee Hooper Remix)
2        Love Is Stronger Than Pride (Mad Professor Remix)
3        Make Some Room
4        Paradise (Ronin Remix)
5        Super Bien Total

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Don't let them lose, we gotta give them a FLAC (download zip file):

https://mega.nz/file/FG4CBKTL#xyQ6miVloXMBqGxdLsjkaVgGlMPsJToJZntMfXuzXKg

It's gonna come back on everyone, if you don't make them dance.

Don't let them stay home and listen to the MP3 (stream or download):

https://mega.nz/folder/8KAxGQjQ#NDWZOIZHlSU6kKqQn4Kzjg