UMK: Cat. # 0694 PUMM
Released September 19, 2005
Track List:
A1. Be Free With Your Love (Deepgroove’s Big Love Mix) (7:07)
A2. Be Free With Your Love (Cube Guys Miami Mix) (6:00)
B1. Be Free With Your Love (Deepgroove’s Big Dirty Dub) (8:14)
(2010 Update:
Yeah, I totally missed the pun on this one. It's not like Mylo's mash-up with Miami Sound Machine hadn't been around either. *shrug* A momentary lapse in brain power. The tune's still pretty good, and even got a subsequent remix by Fonzerilli that was mildly popular. The Deepgroove dub's still my favorite though.)
IN BRIEF: Not dub, but still fun.
It’s safe to say any music fan has certain weaknesses for specific styles. You become so attached to a genre that if a release has its name on it, you instantly want to check it out. I’ve known folks who’re fans of, say, house, and will snatch up anything with the word ‘house’ in the title, irregardless of the content.
I’m no different. For a while, trance was the pet genre I adored but as more and more releases were filled with music I felt was less and less trance, I gave it up. Filling in its place was a form of music I’d grown quite fond of by that point: dub. Of course, such an ambiguous name can mean many things, anywhere from layered bass-heavy reggae to mere instrumental mixes. It can be a frustrating endeavor sifting through it all; for every Dub Trees (cool psychedelic ambience) I come across, there’s an Asian Dub Foundation (poor-man’s Rage Against The Machine) that finds its way into my racks. You’d think I’d learn to be more discriminating over time but, admittedly, half the fun in collecting music is the trial-and-error process; that sense of anticipation whether you’ve stumbled upon something incredible and new. So, I will continue to eagerly check out anything with the word ‘dub’ in it, logic be damned (it’s good to be human!).
Which finally, in the third paragraph of this review, leads me to this release by Miami Dub Machine. Having already provided you with my reasoning for wanting to check this out, perhaps I should tell you straight-up whether it met with my expectations of what I want out of a release with the word ‘dub’ somewhere in it. The short answer is no. For the long answer, keep reading.
Miami Dub Machine is an alternate name for Italian trio Cube Guys, relative newcomers to the scene who’ve done a few remixes- er, covers of 80s songs. This one is the same, as Be Free With Your Love was originally done by synth-poppers Spandau Ballet.
In this case, they lift the catchy chorus and guitars of the original wholesale and surround it with their own beats and effects.
The elements of their own device are actually quite nifty. A hollow bassline (I refuse to call it ‘electro’) bobbles around as glitchy electronic noises grate and grind throughout. Sounds like an IDM noise-fest when I type it but, amazingly, it actually sounds quite funky, as the sounds on display weave and work with the musical template and morph through various effects to remain fresh throughout. Additionally, the original’s verse is now treated as a bit of somber spoken-dialogue, which adds immensely to the more synthetic nature of the Cube Guys’ treatment.
The additional remix here is done by Deepgroove, a DJing duo whom seem to be garnering some praise lately thanks to their live shows. By removing the spoken-dialogue bit and amping up the bassline so it’s a fiercer bleepy bit of funky freshness, their remix is dancefloor dynamite! They also add some sweeping pads during minor breakdowns, creating an ethereal vibe to the proceedings as the original chorus sings along. Deepgroove’s take on Be Free With Your Love is definitely a keeper to groove a clubbing crowd. And, if you feel the Spandau Ballet bits are inhibiting what their remix is fully capable of, they provide a ‘dub’ version, which is basically the same thing but without the sampled chorus and driven by chunkier rhythms.
So, while Miami Dub Machine may not have been what I was expecting, I still enjoyed Be Free With Your Love for entirely different reasons. It’s not going to score super-high marks, just due to the fact this is still more of a cover than an original piece of work, but both the Cube Guys and Deepgroove manage to throw their own dynamic wrinkle into this release. Definitely worth a look-see.
Score: 7/10
Written by Sykonee. Originally published 2006 for TranceCritic.com. © All rights reserved.
