Strings of Life, c or d?

Keeping track of all these remixes is a real pain in the ass.

Oh, yeah --- "Strings" is classic. Beautiful machine music as only D. May could make it back when he did. Resonant to so many people for so many varied reasons. Absolutely deserves its crown.

From Mixmag: "His best known track, 'Strings Of Life' comes from these days, a demo tape he gave Frankie Knuckles to play in his club. It was Frankie who named the song. "It just went crazy," smiles Derrick. "It just exploded. It was like something you can't imagine, the kind of power and energy people got off that record when it was first heard. Mike Dunn says he has no idea how people can accept a record that doesn't have a bassline. It had never dawned on me that 'Strings' didn't have a bassline." Not that it needed one because like a lot of May's productions, in 'Strings' everything from the strings, the blips, the sequences, the keyboards and sounds all move to create rhythm. It's as if the funk has infected every part of the track so the whole thing jiggles and dances like a crazy bag of bones some shaman is waving over the dancefloor. His secret, he claims, is simple - he saves the drums for last. "80% of all my songs have always started with strings, it's like a mood, a frame of mind. I don't always end up using those strings but that's the way I start and from there I just build. I'm a metronome working kind of guy, I make the music to the metronome. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. The last thing I do is add the drums. Too many people use drums as a piece de resistance to their music. That's dumb. Drums are an accent. That's it. You should be able to make a track and not even use drums. You should be able to have so much power that you don't need drums."

Agree about the sublime "Unreleased Mix" version which is second only to his "Illusion First Mix" of Sueno Latino. Mmmm.

Avoid the recent wiggedy Soul Central/Danny Krivit cover

A classic example of how one's mileage may vary. When I finally got to hear this much-lauded track I was boggled by how sloppy it sounded. What others acclaim as the humanisation of electronics just seems half-assed to me.

dude was obviously manic