Dirty beats out of uniform

There have remained constants in Sleaze’s often twisted and bacchanal 21-year history: sex, costume and altruism -“ the latter encapsulated by Sleaze Ball’s role in generating funds for the community’s signature event: the Mardi Gras season.

Sadly, the season now hangs off the community from only a couple of its original hooks and amongst all the commotion of the last two months, things have fallen a little out of alignment for Sleaze 2002.

While Pride surges ahead with Sleaze party plans, the traditional Sleaze CD has preserved its old ties and has been put together under a pre-existing arrangement between Central Station Records and Old Mardi Gras.

What this means is, the Sleaze 2002 In Uniform CD does not feature the same DJs who will perform at this year’s In Uniform party.

Yeah, it’s a bit sad, but what you still get from Sleaze 2002 In Uniform is a double CD featuring two thoroughly killer sets by DJs Paul Goodyear (top right) and Pete McNamara (above) -“ a journey that manages to grasp all the cheek, lust, grime and glamour of Sleaze Ball overpinned on some of the freshest beats of the season.

And just for the record, royalties from the CD go towards the support of Mardi Gras’ future. Altruism indeed.

Right, now all that shit’s out of the way, let’s get down to the product.

Goodyear kicks off his 14-track journey by taking a leaf out of the annals of current New York DJ culture, plucking some cuts from the Queen of Abstract(ion) herself: Yoko Ono.

I’m very inspired by the New York sound and Yoko -“ she’s fabulous, quite left and her lyrics on this track are Sleaze all over, Goodyear says.

Drawing on an a cappella rendition of Ono’s 1970’s undergrounder Open Your Box (a typically breathy piece of screechy squall from Ono), Goodyear flags his intention to fuck a little with our heads for the remaining 75 and a half minutes of his set.

From this disarming entrance, Goodyear belts out some A-grade classic hooks: Lifestylus’s (an outfit helmed by Goodyear and Nathan G) scorcher Meltdown and Roger Goode’s midnight backroom torch song In The Beginning (utilising the hook from Dirty: Obscene, dirty, filthy, immoral -¦ awh yeah -¦).

From here we segue into Romanthony’s bouncy piece of soft porn melodics Never Fuck, and a couple of harder, less distinguishable cuts before Ono’s Open Your Box is revisited -“ this time with the vocal squall wholly realised under the high reverb and superb hard beats of the Orange Factory Mix. Truly brilliant.

Goodyear pushes his limit further by mixing in some raw (and utterly hilarious) vocal house via the Ralphi Rosario/Sylvia Indeep classic Kiss My Ass, cheekily tied together by Goodyear with Dirty’s obscene, dirty, immoral hook.

The feel, I think, for this project is very percussive, it’s got a bit of tribal edge to it, which I always find kind of sexy, Goodyear says. The overall feel is meant to be a bit dirtier than the typical anthems of a Mardi Gras party.

For the remainder of the CD, Goodyear does actually camp up the tempo, winding down with more anthemic tracks including Taylor Dayne’s How Many (Lifestylus Remix) and Starchaser’s Love Will Set You Free.

McNamara takes us into some spookier territory. His 73-odd-minute set pulls on a funkier, more shimmering and more obviously housey edge than Goodyear’s. It’s spooky because McNamara drags us through beautiful funk grooves on his set as easily as he submerges us under the sparse, enveloping reverb of -¦ uh spooky grimy house.

This second set kicks off with the bass-driven vocal house track Be Good from Phunk Investigation. The fluid funk of McNamara’s opening continues with Robbie Riviera’s Sex before edging into the tribal licks of Jaison’s Groov’s Bullet Tooth.

The grimy edge seems to begin with Celada’s stripped-back piece Free Your Mind (Airmale Remix), Junior Jack’s breathy classic Thrill Me and Different Gear’s A Little Bit Paranoid.

Again, the set is capped off on an up-tempo note, with McNamara drawing on a fucking brilliant Trisco remix of Kylie Minogue’s Butterfly and the fuzzy splendour of Punk Kidz’s Chocolate Room that samples (somewhat eerily) from the 1971 film Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory. Suitably deranged.

If you’re doing the party, I suggest you indulge in this collection at home before you take off to catch the rest of the night’s sets. Sleaze 2002 In Uniform is the perfect road of corruption to what’s on offer at Fox on 5 October.