Watching the flashback ’90s nu-house meme develop, it’s quite interesting to note how the classic sounds are being crosspollinated with different genres and inspirations. Last week saw Chocolate Puma adding progressive Prydz-esque sounds and the White N3rd going ADHD with a touch of just about everything. As a fan of Nick Fiorucci and his label HiBias, I’ve been waiting to see what his twist would be and he definitely doesn’t disappoint. “Beggin” uses a revocaled sample of The Four Seasons “Beggin” (like the 2008 hit by Madcon) as the breakdown for the updated house beats with classic grooves and UK-flavored garage overtones. There isn’t enough room here to distinguish between US and UK garage – let’s just go by pronunciations. Pronounced Guh-ruhj, then it’s the classic US house sound. Pronounced Gah-raj, its the ’90s British flavor with 2-step or speed garage inflections. Nick’s track is definitely the latter. “Beggin” is instantly recognizable, with great energy, and will work brilliantly on both commercial and underground club floors.
One thing you quickly realize about EDM producers is that they tend to change names every few years, so if your favorite team suddenly disappears, just do a discogs search on the members and there are bound to be other aliases.? As The Goodmen, Dutch duo Zki & Dobre had a massive club hit in the early ’90s with “Give It Up” featuring tribal batucada drums that was inspired by a Sergio Mendes track (“Magalehna”) and ended up inspiring a massive pop hit by Simply Red (“Fairground”). As Riva, they had the major pop hit “Who Do You Love Now” with Dannii Minogue.? With their current name Chocolate Puma, they’ve released several massive club records like “I Wanna Be U,”? “Always and Forever,” and collabs with Bingo Players (“Disco Electrique” and “Touch Me”). ?For their new single, the duo literally “Step Back” to the ’90s with a speed garage bassline-oriented track that feels equal parts Artful Dodger, Armand Van Helden, and Sharp Boys.? Like the better Nu-House tracks out there, it is a modern update- not just a direct retread of the original sounds, which they accomplished by adding a modern breakdown with a hint of Eric Prydz-style progressive synth work. The track on its own is quite strong but by bringing in vocalist Kris Kris they seem assured another pop crossover record.? It also makes you wonder if they’ve gone back to their old DATs from the ’90s to mine bits for inspiration.