Burn It Up The Rise Of British Dance Music 1986 - 1991

House, techno, and garage were respectively invented in Chicago, Detroit, and New York, but the U.K. embraced them and took underground club sounds into the pop charts during the 1980s and 90s. Burn It Up: The Rise of British Dance Music 1986-1991 explores some of the many developments that took place during the era, from the U.K.s first attempts at acid house to early rave anthems. Like other Cherry Red anthologies, this one casts a wide net and tries to tell a comprehensive history of its subject, making room for established classics as well as rarities, curiosities, and inclusions that might be kind of a stretch, but hear them out anyway. The collection starts with Coldcuts "Beats + Pieces (Mo Bass Remix)," representing the incorporation of hip-hop scratching and sampling into a composition style closer to dance music than rap; in a similar vein, "Beat Dis" by Bomb the Bass also appears later on. Additionally, there are a few hip-house tracks, with high-speed rapping on top of house beats, by artists like Cookie Crew and Monie Love. The tracks included by 808 State, Orbital, and the KLF are all completely essential in order to tell the history of U.K. dance music, and there are also major crossover successes like Simon Harris "Bass (How Low Can You Go)" and SExpress chart-topping "Theme from SExpress." Yet the collection also has fun by pulling from unexpected sources. 1986s "On the House" by Midnight Sunrise (originally a 70s disco act) was reportedly the first U.K. house record, and it was arranged by film score maestro Hans Zimmer. Rick Astleys chopped-up voice appears on a more straightforward house track than his hits, and theres also "Jerk Your Body," ska prankster Judge Dreads cheeky attempt to jump on the house bandwagon. Some of British electronic musics pioneers get into the act, with members of Throbbing Gristle/Psychic TV and Soft Cell embracing acid houses druggy qualities on the Jack the Tab track "Meet Every Situation Head On," and Cabaret Voltaires "Easy Life" appearing at the end of their major-label era, but fitting in with the bleep house sound of Sheffield contemporaries Warp Records. (Nightmares on Waxs "Let It Roll," from their first 12" before they signed to Warp, is also featured.) Electribe 101s "Talking with Myself" and the Beloveds "The Sun Rising" are both sublime cuts fusing deep house with synth pop. The final disc dips more into the early rave era with breakbeat-heavy cuts from N-Joi, Ubik, and Circuit, landing at the doorstep of the breakbeat hardcore movement, which developed into jungle. The only real out-of-place selection is an extended remix of the Cures "Lullaby," which is far from the bands most danceable song. To be fair, it does seem like the type of track that a DJ would throw on at sunrise after a long night of raving. ~ Paul Simpson