Rediscovered 80’s British acid house gem ‘Cortina Kidz’ recently made a serious impact on Andy Butler’s Mr. Intl with remixes from Factory Floor and Juan Maclean & Tim Sweeney. Hot on the heels, Moscow’s Lipelis’ steps in to remix with striking results.
Pitchfork enthused of the recent reissue being “a chilly acid-house track operating the influence of both Soft Cell and the Specials,’ XLR8R as “drenched in dark and sleazy overtones, the track encapsulates a downtrodden time in London”, while Ransom Note noted “Cortina Kidz is more than just an old skool oddity- it's a banger that's stood the test of time”.
Originally recorded on London’s Stoke Newington Road in 1987, produced by a young Tim Brinkhurst ahead of his imminent record deal with Virgin Records with his band Soho, and long before his current role as manager of Mercury Prize winners, Young Fathers, ‘Cortina Kidz’ remained undiscovered and the eccentric spoken word overlay and weird lead vocal made it very unlike the prevailing dance music sound of the time.
Leonid Lipelis explains that “since it’s a reissue of a relatively unknown record it gave me a certain freedom of expression (when it’s something well known and classic you're likely to produce something more serious). I came up with more of a pop song, structured with a vocoder for the main version and had fun playing with vocal samples for the dub mix, paying homage to the 80s sound in both." Lipelis’ recent release on LIES records has gained him support from Four Tet to Dimitri from Paris. He also runs a side project for hardware jams called TMO and co-runs Low Budget Family records.
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