They don’t give you a gold watch or a handsome trophy when you pass a certain threshold in House Music. If they did, Olivier Portal would own ’em all. Portal’s catalog stretches back twenty years and he’s never quite gotten the accolades he deserves. Aside from the playing keys and Rhodes on tons records in that time, he produced more gems under his “Playin’ 4 The City” alias – probably more than any single DJ could reasonably process at the time.
Marc Cotterell at Plastik People Recordings has done yeoman’s work, excavating old P4TC material to go along with some new tracks. They teamed up first with last year’s Playin’ EP, and now with the forthcoming Backfire. Aside from the title track and “Backside” (originally from the 2002 Back Shop EP) is “Minor Track” – the lead in and a new track that shows Olivier has still got it. I’ve got a lot of love for Playin’ 4 The City’s older material, but “Minor Track” is the highlight here for me.
Backfire is coming out first on vinyl; pre-order here and stream above.
Photo via Facebook.
[…] and Straight Up recordings. I loved influential artists such as DJ Deep, Franck Roger and Playin’ 4 the City. I want to point out that Olivier’s music meant so much to me over the years that he now […]