Ronnie - Helplessly In Love (E-Tone's 911 Mix)

 After a few weeks off after the Looped For Pleasure uploads, Empty Archive features some freestyle electro this week.

Big love out to August for the tip on this one. He played it for me after picking it up touring in Queensland. 

The 'help' vocal has echoed throughout my mind since, and I am stoked to finally have my own copy and be able to share in on the web.

Ronnie DeVoe is a former member of New Edition, one of America's earliest boybands, and had a few solo releases on the relatively obscure freestyle label Kamikaze Records.

Here simply as Ronnie, his cheesy freestyle ballad gets a down and dirty electro treatment from E-Tone, who had a number of remixes giving more timeless treatments to of-the-time freestyle cuts. 

The vocal production is undoubtedly the hero on this record, particularly the echoing help that has stayed in my head since August showed it to me over a year ago. 

Pick it up while you still can.

Check out the record on Discogs here

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Looped For Pleasure - Deep Down Rips

 This week we have some early 2000s deep house from Australian production duo Looped for Pleasure.

I copped one of the last copies in the country after listening to Deep Down, hoping that there would be some other good cuts for the channel on the CD.

The whole album is full of disco samples typical of the time, and while some have become a bit stale these three tracks in particular still stand the test of time for me. 

Looped for Pleasure (one of the great aliases) consists of Sean Maloney and Steve Allott, who also made some other techno and drum and bass music as Melting Pot. 

OffWorld Sounds in a Perth based label, with more techno and drum and bass releases across the catalogue. 

This album provides a small chunk of context for the early 2000s Perth house scene that seemed to sway more to the gnarly side as things progressed, similar to the rest of Australia.

The tunes consist of a remix of one of Looped For Pleasure more popular tunes Give U Love, some classic house and some more intense stuff with clear influences of UK house music.

Still hoping to cop the EP if anyone has it!

Check out the CD on Discogs here

 

Ooh Baby - Driving

Pensive neo-soul this week from US label U.N.I.T.Y.

Picked this up digging deep up in the Gold Coast earlier in the year. 

I found the other cuts pretty cheesy but the bongos, echo and restrained vocals on this one meant I had to pick it up.

Recorded in London, Ooh Baby has had no other releases, seemingly lost in the plethora of street and nu soul artists from the UK in the late 1990s. Maybe still driving around on the M1?

Check out the record on Discogs here