Crooked Man turns a disco classic to the dark side

From the excellent Vicious Charm label comes a typically bold musical statement from Richard “DJ Parrot” Barratt aka Crooked Man in the form of a mid-tempo dark, distorted, deep house remake of disco classic “Don’t Leave Me This Way.” It’s a bit like a newly-twisted update of his 2018 Amy Douglas collaboration “Never Saw It Coming,” a record I absolutely loved (and still love), in that he nails the riff he’s going to build the song around and then leads with it, no intro, no build up, just straight in, have faith in the riff and all will be well. The riff in this case is a 2-bar four-note mega overdriven synth stab, deliberate, raw, big and menacing, that, along with the diamond-solid unadorned Crooked Man house beat, drives the track along its way. The vocal — no info currently on who it is — is a suitably epic, bold female voice who delivers this extremely familiar song as though she were singing for her life, and together with the addition of some FX and spooky background synths, the whole thing has massive underground-anthem potential. You get two versions, a seven-and-a-half-minute “medium” mix and an eleven-and-a-half-minute full-length version, both of them working that riff up into a series of stormy peaks and troughs. Big. 

⚪️ Don’t Leave Me This Way Tracklisting

Crooked Man: Don't Leave Me This Way (Vicious Charm / Digital)
1. Don't Leave Me This Way (Extended Mix) (11:34)
2. Don't Leave Me This Way (Club Mix) (7:36)

⚪️ Disclosure Statement

This record was submitted as a promo.

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