These are probably two tracks that you wouldn’t place together, unless of course you were a lover of ’90s italohouse and clocked both vocal samples as coming from diva Ann Marie Smith. Coming off the heels of a massive mix of “Easy” by Matt Zo and Porter Robinson, Canadian duo Botnek has been ceremoniously anointed the next big thing by Dim Mak founder Steve Aoki. Tracks like “Panama Bass” and “Rass” laid the ground work of the electroglitch sound that they’ve developed succinctly over the past few years. For “Through the Night,” they nicked the vocal line which sounds like a sample of Sharada House Gang featuring Ann Marie Smith “Dancing Through the Night.” Starting off like just about any other stadium house track, the magic comes as the vocal is deployed throughout the intro, leading to a drum fill that crescendoes into glitchy electro madness. Whether that vocal effect becomes the “Botnek” trademark or just another sound in their wheelhouse is yet to be seen, but for now they’ve got a massive record that is set to be a massive festival anthem this season. The collaboration of My Digital Enemy and Jason Chance led to the recently unleashed, frolicking “Feel It In the Air.” The energetic mix of tribal and piano house has a definite feel of a big nineties club track with a bit of electro to keep it sounding current. Playing it in my club sets since it was released, the vocal sample has been driving me nuts because I kept thinking it was Motiv8 “Rockin for Myself.” It wasn’t until I heard the Botnek track that it hit me, the sample is from “Move Your Feet” by 49ers featuring Ann Marie Smith (the song which Motiv8 sampled). When combined with “Move On” by Leonardo GloVibes, these tracks point out that the current ’90s house revival movement is also paying its due respect to Italohouse.
Images courtesy of Dim Mak and Zulu Recordings.
