Despite our housebound reputation, even bloggers like to occasionally go out and shake what passes for our stuff. That’s why every two weeks Idolator club guru Tim Finney will be dragging us onto the dancefloor to explore the latest sounds from the worlds of house, techno, and beyond. After the jump, he gives himself over to the martial beat of the Freemasons, finds out what happens when R&B divas become unwitting weapons in the “gay house” arsenal, and offers tantalizing clues to what Beyonce’s next move might sound like.
As the clock ticked over from 2006 to 2007 it was a (then unknown to me) house remix of Beyonce’s “Ring the Alarm” that ushered in the New Year, its commanding presence and martial tone mirroring the almost grim determination that seemed to fill the club by this point: dancers had popped their pills and narrowed their options of potential assignations down to shortlists, and the time for fun was over. Shit was getting serious.
It’s part of the genius of the Freemasons’ remix of “Ring The Alarm” that, despite being better than any other example of, er, well, let’s call it gay house, that I heard last year, it is defiantly not fun. With its shrill string riffs and strident house pulse, the remix sounds purposeful and decisive where the original sounded (enjoyably) confused and frantic. Beyonce’s vocal is slowed down to lock step with the pounding groove, infused with a studied, almost objective air, less railing against her lover than calmly pronouncing a law of historical materialism.
This transition expressed something eternal in the physical distinction between R&B and diva house: if the slowed down, throbbing grooves of R&B seem to insert themselves in the electrified space between two dancers, the histrionic diva house anthem is sexually charged only as an afterthought; its primary purpose is subjugating and ordering an entire floor of dancers. In the Freemasons’ hands, “Ring The Alarm” becomes less intimate or interesting, because anything that stands in the way of this higher purpose is ruthlessly suppressed.
Right now it’s a common experience to go to commercial house clubs and unwittingly hear a half-dozen Freemasons tracks and remixes in the space of an hour. This monopoly is a simple consequence of supply and demand in commercial house music: as nearly every other major producer has embraced the hyperactive synth arpeggios and lumpen guitar riffs of electro-house, the Freemasons are almost alone in having kept faith with the larger-than-life disco-house sound that defined the genre at the beginning of the decade. Or at least, they’re the only ones to have done so while still sounding interesting.
In fact, it’s less a fidelity to any particular sub-strand of house that defines the Freemasons — they’re prone to indulging in synth arpeggios too, and are as fond of David Morales-style piano, William Orbit-style trance chords and Deep Dish-style wispy overproduction as they are Joey Negro-style disco strings — as they way their music unconcernedly transcends any particular historical moment in commercial house as if to embrace all of them.
Still, there’s definitely something very ’90s about the Freemasons, as much because I have no idea what they look like. In an era when even middle-aged veteran commercial house producers feel compelled to sport eyeliner and assymetrical haircuts in order to establish a profile, the ubiquitous, omnipresent invisibility of the Freemasons is a great comfort. Their reliable presence on track three of every other new female-fronted R&B single reminds me of such daring and forgotten predecessors as Peter Rauhoeffer, Club 69, Maurice Joshua, and Thunderpussy–all noble culture warriors for the cause of anonymous and functional house remixes.
How does the Freemasons’ staunch defence of house anonymity square with intriguing reports that Beyonce is drafting them in to produce her next album? It’s true to say that R&B and house are closer to one another than they’ve been since the mid-nineties: just witness the success of Rihanna’s “Don’t Stop The Music,” driven by the economic crunch of a pounding four-by-four beat. You’d probably have to go back to the heyday of Whitney Houston’s songs for The Bodyguard to find anything comparable. It’s understandable that Beyonce’s got one eye on her key rival and perhaps a second eye on her international market (always more sympathetic to house than U.S. listeners). But what would a Freemasons-produced R&B album sound like?
A small clue can be found in their “radio edit” of Kelly Rowland’s “Work,” which junks the tense Scott Storch funk of the original in favour of a soundclash between frenzied tablas and Spanish trumpet on the one hand, and a shiny, carefree disco groove on the other. The track strongly alludes to house, but nonetheless moves at an R&B tempo, one more suitable for bumping and grinding than hands in the air euphoria. What mostly carries over from the Freemasons’ house work is their strange capacity to throw everything but the kitchen sink at a groove and still come up with something that sounds deliberately unthreatening. It’s a nice trick: what defines the sudden resurrection of four-by-four disco grooves in R&B and pop (see Britney’s “Gimmer More”, Timbaland’s “The Way I Are,” etc.) is how comfortable and comforting these tunes are, emphasising durable craft rather than stunning sound design.
But the Freemasons’ greatest strength as house remixers or even urban producers — their defiant anti-charisma — becomes a mixed blessing on their own releases. The overwhelming but generic assault of their sonic blueprint works best when rubbing up against personality-charged vocals from the likes of a Beyonce or a Faith Evans: their sassy, bumping disco remix of Faith’s “Mesmerised” being perhaps their biggest track to date. Compare the startling, sensual force of those performances to the poised sweetness of the session singer on the duo’s “Uninvited” (bizarrely, a cover of an old Alanis Morrissette hidden album track), where no matter how many histrionic string riffs the duo concoct in the background, the ultimately passive pleasantness of the vocal can’t help but undercut the tune’s wow factor.
On the duo’s just released debut album (wryly titled Unmixed), one searches in vain for a storming diva-fest to quite match their takes on “Ring The Alarm” or “Déjà Vu,” although the massive breakdowns and climaxes are all present and correct. Perhaps it’s that, even when they draw on fabulous-sounding, big-chested house divas, like on the sweeping Salsoul-meets-Loleatta Holloway grandeur of “If”, the producers seem unable to coax a performance that stands on its own, rather than sounding like just another functionally appropriate trick from their toolbox.
But once you adjust to this slight disappointment, the hyper-generic quality of these songs makes a great deal of sense: Unmixed recreates perfectly the essential interchangeability of the music at the seediest of commercial house clubs, where overt memorability takes a backseat to a certain sleek familiarity–in both the tunes and the erotic encounters they soundtrack. Every night, every moment, is meant to be indistinguishable from the previous, only bigger than before somehow. It’s a vibe not really suited to solitary listening, but no music better sums up the… no, not the euphoria… the flushed, preening, wired-up largeness of the eternal now.
Tim F roolz OK. Quick question:
just another functionally appropriate trick from their toolbox
Thinking on past conversations (perhaps misremembered) you’ve often tended to celebrate not so much the functional (or hyper-generic) but the incremental in terms of how songs and sounds play out in larger contexts. So might the album be more of an incremental step for them?
I’d think Beyonce would have tapped the Freemasons simply out of sibling rivalry with Kelly R. But yeah, “going Euro” is something a lot of R&B artists seem to be doing of late, especially given the proliferation of Stargate.
I like the idea of the Freemasons being quaint, but I do have a semantic issue with the “gay house” label. How is house music not inherently gay? I understand that there is a divide between this stuff and the sexlessness of Villalobos and the Germans, but considering the history and the fact that straight guidos in Jersey seem to love this shit as much as homos, saying “gay house” is like saying “black hip-hop.”
This is a welcome column. I’ve personally grown weary of diva house, so I eagerly look forward to the next edition.
Also, I know about 3,000 queens who will scratch your eyes out for calling Peter Rauhofer “forgotten.”
The Freemasons have been such a breath of fresh air in the electronic world, a return to form, of sorts.
In recent years, many of the more prominent DJ’s had been returning to a modernized version of 80’s synth pop in an attempt to continuously reinvent the sound of the current dance floor.
But this sort of electronica/’gay dance’ that is represented here is a reminder of what people really want to hear, and that the main purpose of this is to make your gay ass MOVE!!
Glad they’ve made a name for themselves by simply making solid tracks that don’t overthink themselves…
@Richfourfour: I agree, Rich. There are so many types of house music: tech, electro, deep, vocal…I can’t fathom to call any of it “gay.” And not everyone who likes house music is gay.
you know, i’m not sure if tim even has an idolator.commenter account yet! i will remedy this so he can attend to all these gay questions.
i mean questions about gayness. not like in the junior high way. oh, you know what i mean.
I only know any of this in the context of an actual club, so… chicken or egg: Freemasons or Rockamerica?
Also, on the Whitney tip: my personal experience was that “It’s Not Right, But It’s Okay” marked the last huge confluence of charting R&B and house. Every thing after was for the most part remixes of artists who weren’t getting serious mainstream success (see: Rockamerica), or simple remixes of rap hits.
Because I love IDOLATOR so much, I’m just going to take the liberty of pointing out how many fun references you can make by trying to rhyme the word “gayness”.
Make of it what you wish….
You should check out the first Freemasons album, “Shakedown”. It is the same songs as “Unmixed” but they are all mixed together. I think they make more sense as a whole when mixed.
If you need further proof of the blending of R&B and house, go listen to the recently leaked Ne-Yo song “Closer”.
I’m hopelessly addicted to the Freemason “Work” edit, so the knowledge of more of their work is most welcome.
I do feel the Freemason’s are the producer/remixers of the moment. Not that it is a bad thing, but eventually their sound will grow tiresome and the hating will begin. I like a few of their mixes (see “Greenlight” and their redo of “Uninvited”), but I am a bigger fan of crunchier electronic stuff.
In the end I do have some of their stuff on my ipod for working out too :D
I think this is the history Richfourfour touched on in his comment, but, I may be wrong, isn’t it called “house” because a DJ (DJ Knuckles?) sort of created it in the Warehouse, a gay club in Chicago? Thereby further reducing the need to call it “gay house”?
Also, I normally hate it when remixes slow down the vocals, because it literally makes the song drag, but that “Ring the Alarm” remix is pretty great in its straightfoward way.
Without presuming to speak for Tim, what I got when I read him call it “gay house” was that it was the stuff really popular specifically in gay clubs, as opposed to in the club world more generally.
“love on my mind” anybody? holy jeebus. scorching track. it never fails to get people up when i drop it. i don’t see why everyone is all: “hey! house sure goes great with r & b, right? all in the roots: gospel, soul, funk, disco, latin…
anyway, the freemasons are pretty generic in their productions–very late 90s stuff. i think most club music now has been given the dirty synth rub and sci-fi bleeps courtesy of timbaland, basement jaxx, and the neptunes. funny how the club, seen as underground and progressive, now takes its cues more from pop.
you people need to get more kenny dope and masters at work in your lives if you love the late 90s ish.
On a side note, what the hell’s up with that cover? Who rides a bike in that outfit? Is that why she’s pushing it home?
Basically what Matos said: it’s my stand-in term for “the stuff I hear in gay clubs”. it’s not only villalobos who doesn’t get played there - even much closer stuff like US deep house just doesn’t fit the vibe most of the time. And while The Freemasons get play elsewhere, it’s only been at gay clubs (rather than straight commercial house clubs) where I’ve heard DJs play what were almost Freemasons tribute sets.
(while I was witnessing one of these a few weeks back, a friend of mine was on the receiving end of the pick-up line, “Hey, you’re one of the guys from The Freemasons, aren’t you?” - as pick-up lines went this didn’t work so well, and I was drafted in to translate. It was awkward for all concerned)
The stuff on ‘Unmixed’ in particular is practically archetypal for the scene, whereas in my experience the kinds of straight clubs that do play The Freemasons tend to mix this stuff up with R&B, electro-house etc. I’m not crusading for the term though!
Ned: I really like the album and would love to run an evolutionary argument along the lines you’re suggesting but there’s nothing to hang it on - if anything, the appeal of this album is its blatant refusal of the obvious incrementalist options (the most prominent being electro-house-ification), unless you count “back to 2000!”
Space didn’t permit a further run-down but the other key tracks on the album to investigate are “Nothing But A Heartache”, “Love On My Mind” and “Watchin”. And the cover of “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” is better than I expected. Also, tip: look for the original and superior version of “Rain Down Love”, better than the album version and perhaps anything else on there.
Two quick points on an old post. House was, is, and always will be Gay music for Gay people. It was the music created by us, for us! Thank you. Hetero don’t like, the hetero don’t dance, like we used to say in The Palladium, NYC.
Second…House IS about dance. So, Gay or hetero, get a short clue. This ain’t jazz miss honey. You won’t score points with the childrens doing a dissertation. No sense analyzing house music. It really has to be felt in your rear and your feet. If you stop long enough to contemplate it, you just missed the beat.