What a f*cked-up year, right? Last Spring, we published a series of edits to support artists we love and spread a bit of love. By this time, we would have never guessed that we’d be in lockdown again in November. As the situation for artists and music lovers has never been so tough, we are proud of starting this project again !

In this second volume, we'll post 3 tracks edited by artists we are supporting and who accepted to share their latest works with you. We'll provide the tracks and some small interviews so you'll also understand their artistic approach and background.

La Union - Maracaibo (Tropical Tempo Edit)

We are always digging soundcloud / bandcamp for new tunes / edits and we have to give some credits to John (Jisco Astral) for having found Tropical Tempo's work. Hidden behind numerous aliases and keeping some kind of mystery around his personal life, we were still amazed by his genuine balearic touch. We have tried to break Silas' secret and now a bit more about him.

Mister T records · La Union - Maracaibo (Tropical Tempo Edit)

Hello Silas, how are you doing? How are you keeping you busy these days ?

I moved to a small island in the Mediterranean at the end of last year, so Lockdown has been a bit strange having moved here on my own, but I can think of worse places to be for sure. Most of my possessions are in storage, including my recording studio and most of my records, but I’ve been busy editing all things tropical with some new discoveries via the internet on my laptop.

Can you tell us how you first get in touch with deejaying and vinyl records?

I can remember going to my first Acid House night in South London, it was called RIP, they had a few rooms set up with speakers and strobe lights, I didn't see a DJ all night, they must have been in a room I didn't go in, and i left not even knowing if these Acid House tracks were even on vinyl!!!!, I was already into Electro and early Rap, and had already heard some House tracks, but this Acid stuff was very different. Another night we were in North London for a much more eclectic club night called Hedonism, it was held in a tiny warehouse near Hanger Lane, where you would hear live Jazz Funk bands playing in one room, and Acid House pumping out in another. After 6 months of going to these club nights and others like Shoom and Boys Own nights, i started finding out what records were being played in these clubs, and started buying as many as i could find, it was much harder back then, no easy internet searches, and although some of these records were hard to find, they were not rare. I then purchased my first Technics 1210 record deck, quickly followed by another a year later. So it wasn't long before I started djing, and buying records in most of the genres became a full time hobby, by the end of 1989 I had quite a sizeable collection, buying mainly House/Acid House/Disco/Jazz/Dub/Ambient and anything even slightly Balearic.

How did you come releasing edits ? Where do you find the material and do you have a specific work pattern ?

I did my first edit with my Kurzweil K2000RS synth/sampler, it was The Blackbyrds – Time Is Movin, i always wanted to play this song out, but it had a few bits in it that I really didn’t like, so i tried to edit it, but with only 2 or 3 mins of sample time it was tricky, i don’t remember ever finishing the edit. 15 year later I returned to the idea of editing songs, but this time with an iMac and with plenty of memory!!! and the bigger screen also made it a lot easier. By this time there were a lot of people editing tunes, and releasing them on vinyl, I got 4 songs together and contacted a few labels, hardly anyone got back to me, so i decided to release them myself on vinyl under my Alias MadDisco. I did a few releases on vinyl, but then i wanted to start licensing my releases, and I had this very cool song i had found in Record & Tape Exchange in the 90’s, it was Bourbon And Maxx – Mystery Man, it was truly a family affair with a few of them being related, it had this amazing vocal intro and wicked bassline, it was a great jam, but i wanted some parts repeated, and a little edited out.

When I finished the edit I decided to put it on Youtube as well as Soundcloud, and this turned out to be very lucky because family members of the band found my edit, and commented about it, and that’s how I made contact with Allan Walker, one of the writers of this song.
With most of my edits I tend to want to keep the original feel of the song, it’s normally just a few parts that i want to remove, or extend, i like to stay true to the original, but i have also played around with trying to remix a few, giving them a more House feel.

Can you tell us a bit more about this Tropical Tempo edit of La Union ?

I first heard La Union – Maracaibo at a club called Shoom during the second Summer of Love, its a great little tune, so Balearic, and with its house pianos and beat it always got people dancing, great production and remix, the remix made it quite different from the bands other stuff, but again there were a few bits i didn’t like, including a flute sound that just bothered me, hahahhaha, so one Sunday afternoon 26 years after i first heard this tune i did a bit of reminiscing and edited it.

Thanks Silas and hope to see you on your island someday !

Follow Tropical Tempo:
https://soundcloud.com/tropical-tempo-records

La Union - Maracaibo (Tropical Tempo Edit)

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Mail : mister.t.records[@]gmail.com

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