Sir Henry's Weekly Sweat Choon

Weird one this, horrible generic 80's Mel & Kim style pop tune which, for reasons beyond my knowledge, got an absolutely wicked remix (well, 4ish minutes of it anyway) and ended up on the Henry's dancefloor!

Big tune from the K-Klass family, back when Deconstruction was a buy on sight label.. I've always been a fan of detuned synth wonk and this definitely does it best! Killer 12" and bet your bitcoin on the flip side showing up in another episode of your favourite parochial house music weekly (but not really) podcast!

A double header for you this week and another of my very favourite Sweat tapes. Sublimely mixed (of course) and container of my all time favourite house tune! See if you can guess what it is!

Another mix in lieu of a tune....but top 5 sweat tape for me! 20 years on and (tape hum aside) still very listenable to-able. Shane & Greg gave us so many transcendent, yet ephemeral dance floor memories but the tapes will always live on! Enjoy....

Chris Mellor (Coco), Lene Stokes (Steel), and Craig Woodrow (Lovebomb) - this trio have produced more "stone cold" Henry's classics that I could shake a stick at, if I had a stick and if I felt like shaking it! But, for me, this is the original, the best and the one I come back to again and again... a real "DJ" tune, an absolute treat to mix if you're feeling brave. Opening with some beautifully detuned synth wonk, followed by a punch you in the guts kick and when that vocal hits you, you know you've been hit.

On the cheesier side of Henry's but few tunes ignited the dancefloor quite like this one. Chicago meets Italy with a perfect combination of hands in the air piano riff, pitched up vocals and middle eight rap.

With a break from the norm - gonna start posting a few of my favey mixes.. this one BANGS!

My heart starts dancing - what was lost is now found! I fucking love everything about this tune, I'm not generally one to bleat on about the "virtues of vinyl" but this is a tune that only reaches her full potential on wax! Possibly my (and your) first introduction to Mister Frankie Knuckles (hallowed be thy name) it's a perfect blend of humans and computers. Keep this in your quiver for the next time someone tells you house music is boring and repetitive!

Evokes a vivid memory of someone (who shall remain nameless) telling 16 year old me that hip-hop was house music with a rap... Anyhoo - a back bar & Keep the Faith staple.... no Sweat Dancer needs this track described to them....

A real gem of a track here from 1988, sampling everything from Simple Minds to Tony Montana with a bit of Prince thrown in for good measure, this track is anything but a cockroach.

As the parent of a precocious child I get asked 39 times per day what my favourite tune is - THIS is the most common answer! Not the biggest fan of sax in house tracks - but every time I listen to this I'm instantly transported back to a sweaty Saturday night in a dingy nightclub in Cork. Almost 30 years on and still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.. https://www.discogs.com/Fiction-Vs-Eddie-Flashin-Fowlkes-The-Feeling-FF-In-Crime/release/89268

A break from posting tunes, probably the finest representation of Henry's.

First of what I'm sure will be a huge number of episodes featuring Pete Heller and Terry Farley. Not much to say about this track apart from just fucking press play..

Another deep & dirty techno banger here with Sweat written all over it... I absolutely adore every element of this tune. https://www.discogs.com/Dj-Leo-Mas-Oval-Prod-Is-It-Infunktuation/release/233942

Another HUGE tune this week... lovely late night dubby number that ticks all the boxes. CJ Mackintosh showing his incredible skills, teasing element after element into this mix until that glorious synth breakdown around the two minute mark. It takes a confident producer to remix Sounds of Blackness and remove nearly all the vocals, an absolute triumph!

Top 5 tune for me.. always a struggle to shoehorn so many elements into a coherent whole but this track manages it with ease. I'm a big fan of tracks that slowly build to a massive payoff but there is nothing slow about this one, it grabs you by the throat from the opening bars but somehow still manages to build and build adding element after element, peaking with that vocal and slowly winding down until you feel like you've been ridden hard and put away wet!

Another of those tracks that didn't seem to hit anywhere other than Henry's. For me, Strictly Rhythm and George Morel had taken a definite slide into mediocrity by the time this track landed but boy howdy this one banged! A perfect combination of beautifully deep Hammond style organs, plucked basses and delightfully tweaked vocal samples that worked so well through the Sir Henry's sound system. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!! https://www.discogs.com/Roommates-Bass-Grooves-Do-You-Like-It/release/1687461

Moving on to a slightly later vintage to previous episodes, I absolutely adore everything about this track. Wonderfully slippy & slidey drum programming, chest pummeling bass-line and cheeky sample courtesy of First Choice, surely the most sampled disco act of all time. https://www.discogs.com/Seventh-Movement-Luvtraxxx/release/42452

Another deep banger here straight out of the Henry's playbook. Huge bass, deep driving organ sounds and THAT VOCAL CUT UP!! https://www.discogs.com/Taana-Gardner-What-Can-I-Do-For-You/master/48919

Not a Henry's tune by any stretch but the Kym Mazelle version was of course a HUGE dancefloor banger. For me though, this was always the original and the best. https://www.discogs.com/Jean-Carn-Was-That-All-It-Was/release/156309