After forty years in action, R&S Records has remained young at heart and keenly explores diverse sounds under the electronic umbrella. For the 40th anniversary, the label once set up by Renaat and Sabine in Ghent, and now managed from London, reignites the legendary “In Order To Dance” series, which for decades has spread the message of techno all over the world.
In the early 1990’s, the market was flooded with CD compilations that were a budget solution for the young peeps not able to get hold of twelves. The volumes of “In Order To Dance” belonged to the top shelf of such samplers. Especially the fifth installment that featured many timeless tracks from Carl Craig, Teste, Dave Angel, to name just a few. The compilations were an educational tool for a larger audience of fledgling techno fans.
The imprint decorate with a Ferrari-style logo has covered a whole spectrum of dance music. In version 4.0, R&S sends out a flotilla of artists who mostly represent new and brave names. It also explains the label’s preceding chain of digital tracks by newcomers who now appear on “In Order To Dance 4.0”.
However, one can’t hide from the homesickness of the nineties. Of seasoned players, Underworld (“Appleshine”) does a vinyl-only appearance. Belgium’s rave cannon Insider returns with pumping and chords driven techno euphoria (“Something Flash”) that has the most annihilating floor effect of the pack. With Benelux warehouse stabs and piano passages, the Italian producer Dino Lenny (“Did This”) takes a leap from bleep to ecstatic euro house, built on ‘music saved my life’ narrative. On a similar terrain are Balearic melancholy by the French artist Paul Roux (“Bapteme”) and dusty breakbeats exposed to neon lights by Pascal Nuzzo (“Hold On”). One of the highlights is raw hip hop cut “Dripping Sauce”, a collab of MC Conscious Route and the drum’n’bass artist Subject 1, who debuted already in the early 1990s.
Elastic dancehall meets the house warmth in Saytek‘s “IYNDUB01 (Live)” and VROMM (“Red Tuna”) organizes a steamy dub excursion. Celestial synth impulses replicate Model 500’s peak times in Hyphen‘s “Winter Sky” and also to the fluidal section belong housy breaks by Dharma (“Structured Chaos”). Adam Antine (“Sortavala”) works with rubbery bass and funky breaks and Acidulant is engaged in sleazy electro by proclaiming “Make Love”. Anarchic junglist Som.1 issues an “Ultimatum”, while Nphonix & Matrika revisit trip hop days (“Rumble Around”).
“In Order To Dance 4.0” is a smart casual compilation that offers a winding road through different sections of electronics.