where's it gone, where's it gone

 

On a mad jag of listening to peak 2step and UKG - here's a playlist of the stuff - and this one, Stephen Emmanuel presents Colours, "Hold On (SE22 Mix)" -  leaps out at me for its feverish sultry hard-swung insanity.

 

Here's what I wrote about it at the time: 

"The vocal – a paroxysm of hair-trigger blurts and stuttered spasms of passion – doesn’t resemble a human being so much as an out-of-control desiring machine."

Of course, Todd Edwards is overwhelmingly present here as an influence, but I think the student has surpassed the master.  As always, the UK pushes the US template just that little bit further, into the deranged. 

Many questions remain unanswered

- who was Stephen Emmanuel?

- why is it an "SE22 Mix"?

- was the "Cute Mix" any cop? 

SE22 - which includes bits of Herne Hill and East Dulwich - is quite near where I used to live (Effra Road, close to Brockwell Park). Although that was back in the early '90s - by 98-99 I was in New York. 

I must have the vinyl with the 'Cute Mix' on it somewhere.

Ah, SE22 is a Stephen Emmanuel alias - S E, geddit?

Andy Lysandrou is somewhere in the background of the project - A.L. as in Boogie Beat Records and then Ice Cream Records (and also Truesteppers)

But apart from a couple of other tunes, SE leaves scarcely any spoor for the nuumologist to track 

Nice tune - nice 'n ' ripe

10 degrees Below - a name I remember, fairly vaguely

Alongside SE's slim discography, those Basement Jaxx boys had the good taste to invite this mysterious personage to remix one of their tunes 

The SE22 mix of "Hold On" is so preferred by the massive that - even when it isn't credited as such, but just as "Hold On" - that is it what you will find on YouTube. 

Aha, hold on a minute - found a version of "Hold On" that isn't "SE22"

But it is a remix, by Y-Tribe,  that uses the "SE22" as its launchpad

As does this by Duncan Powell, an auteur of "late 2step"

These remixes seem to be from four years or so after the original release 

Neither manages to make "SE22" any more jittery or eroto-delirious than the original 

If anything, it goes into the Zone of Fruitless Intensification

Becomes an irritant

Bit like drill & bass or breakcore's relationship to jungle 

Yet these re-renderings are by tru believers, not outsiders

Blimey, even more remixes!

And yet another by Duncan Powell, which  admittedly is quite eroto-delirious

4/4, so basically turns it back into Todd Edwards, but more flailing and disjointed than he'd ever dare.

And then this one which is just vandalism, and I assume unsanctioned 

Back to the immaculately maculate original

But wait a minute! With the YouTube clip above, in the artist and track title, suddenly someone called June Hamm appears!

The vocalist, one must assume. But there's no trace of anything else by someone of that name.

Crikey, another fold in the fabric - Craig David did a kind of cover / rewrite of the tune 

Most of what's good about it is the original - and Craig, mostly, squirts a load of vocal whipped cream over it. The Niche-y Bassline element is nice, but Tinchy's contribution is fairly feeble.

But I like it -  it could hardly fail to tickle my nuumerogenous zones.  

Now with nuum, there's always pre-echoes as well as after-echoes

And I always connect "Hold On (SE22 Mix)" with earlier febrilities such as this