Never pass up a record with a John Morales remix. That rule should have been carved into your crate or sewn into the inseam of your record bag three decades ago. Every time I’ve put an M+M Mix off to the side or otherwise sidelined myself from the latest work product of the greatest remixer alive, I’ve regretted it.
And a record with a pedigree that would cause even an inbred royal to blush shouldn’t be passed over in silence. Yet that’s what’s happening as this marvelous 12″ featuring the combined talents of Marc Evans, John Morales, Joey Negro, Thommy Davis, DJ Spen and a host of live musicians has been buried in an avalanche of Traxsource links to inferior digital releases from the same label.
As a further source of confusion, this is the second release called The Supernatural Communication EP; the first was a 9 mix package (digital only) in December that shares not a single mix with this vinyl release. This is new, and it’s mostly John Morales’ show – yes, the M+M Mix John Morales, without question one of the top 5 mixers in history – but he stands on the shoulder of giants. The credits take up nearly half of the sticker, including the writing credit (Marc Evans, Joey Negro, Thommy Davis, Sheila Ford and Sean Spencer), production (DJ Spen & Davis), co-production (Negro again), background vocals (Ford again), guitar (Wayne Cooper), keys (Gary Hudgins), live bass (Irvin Madden) and so on.
Look at this sick shit:
Side A features a “live 12 inch mix”. We toss around the word “disco” a lot these days when we really mean “disco-influenced”. But this is disco. If I beat the shit out of this record and ground some dirt into the groove, you wouldn’t be surprised if this was made in 1978 rather than 2014. Evans’ powerful voice itself brings you back to an era when a Nile Rodgers or Dan Hartman could pick up a guitar or sit down at a piano and write a dance music anthem. Morales’ M+M Main Mix is made with love: this is a style he basically patented, and it’s here in its purest form. The “Funky Bronx M+M Mix” makes it sound like a live band either starting their set or wrapping up in one last exhausted encore – the instruments are stripped bare and dropped into the mix one at a time. It’s a fucking jam.