VA - Larry Levan's Classic West End Records: Remixes Made Famous At The Legendary Paradise Garage (1999)

Available on CD, cassette and limited edition triple vinyl (via DJ specialty shops) this is a compilation of nine tracks remixed (between 1979 and 1982) by Larry Levan, the DJ behind New York's famously influential nightclub, The Paradise Garage. Levan is a producer and remixer who, though he died in 1992, continues to be cited as one of the industry's greatest and most revered. Each of the nine individual full-length tracks was DIGITALLY REMASTERED specifically for this project. The sound quality is brilliant! A supporting series of classic West End Records 12" vinyl singles are being released to compliment this album in the signature West End Records hot pink New York City skyline jackets. The compilation comes complete with comprehensive liner notes giving the label's history, its relationship with Levan and anecdotes about each of the nine remixes and how each came about.


..Absolutely unmissable, exceptionally essential recordings. – Chris Orr, XLR8R magazine, September 1999

…Without question, this should be required listening for today's DJs, remixers, and club punters. – Michael Paoletta, Dance Trax, Billboard Magazine, June 19, 1999

West End produced some of the quality stuff, and this CD is both evocative and contemporary. – David Hinckley,New York Daily News/New York Now, July 13, 1999

About the Artist
Lawrence Philpot, aka Larry Levan, legendary disc jockey of the Paradise Garage, record producer and remixer died Sunday, November 8, 1992 at Beth Israel Hospital from heart failure due to endicarditis: he was 38. Larry’s brilliance lay not only in his technical skill and audio expertise, but also in his unique and eclectic taste. He confounded and greatly broadened the "rules" of what "dance music" could be, mixing everything from gospel, reggae, Philly soul and Euro-disco to rock ("Stand Back"/Stevie Nicks and "Eminence Front"/The Who, to name but two), post-punk ("The Magnificent Seven"/The Clash, and Talking Heads), ambient/environmental music (Klaus Schulze and Manuel Gottsching, for example), and just about everything else. He augmented this aural collage with disorienting sound effects and mind-expanding audio manipulations, working the crossover and balance controls to throw sound around the room as if it had a will of its own. Larry was a shaman who opened a sonic Pandora’s box when he Djed, with all kinds of beautiful, scary and indescribably bizarre sounds careening around the room like spirits flying out of the Ark of the Covenant. Larry cut his musical teeth at The Loft, essentially the first underground, afterhours disco. Started by David Mancuso at the advent of the ‘70s, The Loft combined psychedelic culture with proto-disco music, which then consisted of longform, psychedelic-influenced soul ("Melting Pot"/Booker T. & The MG’s, "Papa Was a Rolling Stone"/The Temptations, etc.), jazz-funk like The Blackbyrds, funky rock ("Woman"/Barabas, for example) and trippy head music like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon. When Paradise Garage opened in 1976, Larry added gospel-and R&B-flavored disco to his musical menu. With Larry at the helm, the Garage embodied all that was beautiful about disco: glamour, unpretentiousness, excitement, hedonism, epiphany through music, black/white and gay/straight harmony, and the general concept! of the dancefloor as family. Celebrities like Grace Jones, Keith Haring, Nile Rogers, Chaka Khan and Madonna danced the night away along with thousands more of Larry’s dedicated flock. As a remixer, Larry applied his inimitable touch to countless all-time club classics, including "Got My Mind Made Up"/Instant Funk, "Ain’t No Mountain High Enough"/Inner Life, "Can’t Play Around"/Lace, "Heartbeat"/Taana Gardner, Gwen Guthrie’s "Should Have Been You" and "Nothing Going On But The Rent" and many, many others. As a writer and producer, he helped create the sound of the innovative New York Citi Peech Boys and their seminal club hits "Don’t Make Me Wait", "On A Journey", "Come On, Come On" and "Life Is Something Special", a joyous, mesmerizing celebration of life, love, and music. Larry’s work has a spacious, epic, atmospheric quality, with a haunting blend of joy and pain. Larry’s legacy is more than just a legendary nightclub and a fistful of club classics. Larry Levan was the ultimate DJ: he didn’t just excel at his job, he reinvented the concept of the DJ, blurring the boundaries of music, race, sex, sexuality, and changing thousands of people’s perception of music, sound and the world around them. – Adam Goldstone

Note: Don't Make Me Wait (New York Citi Peech Boys) is mp3 320 kbps.

Tracklist
1 Heartbeat (Taana Gardner)
2 Serious, Sirius, Space Party (Ednah Holt)
3 No Frills (Taana Gardner)
4 Don't Make Me Wait (New York Citi Peech Boys)
5 Let's Go Dancin' (Sparque)
6 Is It All Over My Face (Loose Joints)
7 Work That Body (Taana Gardner)
8 Give Your Body Up To The Music (Billy Nichols)
9 When You Touch Me (Taana Gardner)