Well loved DJ/producer/label owner Daniel Wang was kind enough to share his thoughts on and memories of five tracks found on the recently released Presents Balihu 1993-2008 2xCD compilation. Below you’ll also find a free download of his early track “Like Some Dream I Can’t Stop Dreaming.” Without further ado, take it away Mr. Wang.

“I think I’ve done this more or less in a reduced format in the liner notes, but maybe I can be a bit more specific here so people know what was going on inside my head. But first, I have to say, I feel Balihu is kind of a curious creature because there’s a lot of thinking and talking going on behind it all. Like I’ve said before, I’ve always felt that good music or art doesn’t really need explanation or background information to justify it — it ought to be just something you feel, although that can depend a lot on context. So, even though these replies explain my intentions at the time, they don’t necessarily say what these tracks are in reality, do they? Well, maybe that’s why this whole compilation is so odd — and I prefer oddness over slick perfection. So, that said…”

01. “Iyé-Ubao,” 1997:
First, the intro — those cuicas. When I went out dancing with voguing instructor Muhammad Omni, he was totally obsessed with the long intro beats of Barry White‘s “Sweet Summer Suite,” which were distinctly NOT four-on-the-floor and which could only be found on an extended bootleg edited by Danny Krivit. Funny thing is, in my years of going to see Afro-Latin percussion players in New York, I never saw anyone use a cuica (which comes from Brazil, I think [Spot on. -ed]), so we couldn’t quite figure out what that sound was — was it an animal? Humans imitating apes? Then I discovered that the Roland TR727 “Latin” drum machine and the Sound Canvas module had this sound. But the only way to make it “talk” was to play it with the pitch wheel on my controller. So, without knowing WHAT a cuica was, I figured out how to imitate it and was quite proud of that. Then, to give this “Afro” track an electronic edge, I put the conga pattern through a phaser and added the nonsense vocoder phrase. But when you think about it, “Iyé-Ubao” is about the shortest way you can pronounce all five basic consonants, which is important in creating a vocoded sound with filter variation. I’d love to make another Afro-synth track like this one day, but with looser live percussion perhaps. Also, I think a lot about how rarely this kind of sound happened, because people who seriously understand synthesizers and people who really get into Afro-Latin sounds are two different tribes which rarely meet. Maybe the jazz band Weather Report would be such an exception?

02. “Ah… N’Arrête Pas,” 1997:
This is partially based on the moody break in the middle of the campy 1979 track by Poussez, “Never Gonna Say Goodbye.” The irony is, when you listen to that whole Poussez album, it is already a kind of soulless commercial parody (produced with drum machines and synth bass) of several other major “real” disco hits, i.e. “Never Can Say Goodbye” by Gloria Gaynor, “Let’s All Chant,” and even “Boogie Oogie Oogie” by Taste of Honey. I think people should realize that when they think all this disco music from the 70s is “real music,” which is sort of a relative term (although I stop at most laptop techno of course). But from upbeat coochie-coochie disco, I wanted to make this into a gay leather fantasy, so the deep French male voice (my own) is saying “Tu es le plus beau garcon que j’ai jamais vu, des le moment ou je t’ai vu la, je savais qu’on serait ensemble” (“You’re the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen, since the moment I saw you there, i knew we would be together”). I mean, isn’t that the story of every sleazy businessman watching his favorite stripper, whether the object of desire is man or woman? Then you step into the daylight together and sometimes it’s not quite the same. This is why discotheques should be kept dark.

03. “Seven Shadows,” 1996:
Let’s pick this one because it reminds me of my early days of exploration. I like other tracks better but sometimes a good track is just a sound, that’s all. Again, this was the naive result of my urge to combine the “electronic” world with the soulful jazz-inflected “Garage” disco which I heard in New York so much. The trumpet breakdown is a shameless imitation of Candido’s “Thousand Finger Man,” which is in fact a highly flawed production: The bass and drums sound awful on the Salsoul release, and the proof of this is that my friend Alex Pewin from London copied me Tom Moulton’s unreleased attempts at remixing “Thousand Finger Man” and the bass became 10 times fuller. Anyhow, I don’t know where I got the idea to arpeggiate the simple minor chord, but I didn’t know what an analog synth was back then — I only had a Korg 01W with an onboard MIDI sequencer. So I programmed the pattern note by note and even panned it via MIDI controllers. I was never happy with the bass, but this well-known Garage-head named James who always came to our record shop told me he LOVED this track, he had heard someone play it at Sound Factory Bar. This was not so much a compliment as a shock to me that the distance between people’s perceptions of “what a good track is” could be so great — I thought he was only into classic soul. Or is “good music” really so influenced by what other people TELL you it is?

04. Brennan Green, “Behind the Ocean,” 2002.
I don’t mind pulling the rug out from under my own feet, and I shouldn’t do it to Brennan, but everyone recognizes his originality now so I can tell the true story of this track. The “acid loop” in here is a straight copy of some untitled, unreleased track I had on a cassette tape from a 1990 Tony Humphries KISS FM mix! In this period, producers like Pal Joey and Jovonn were just getting recognized. And after one Jovonn track, Tony H. mixed in this hypnotic instrumental track, a loop done with a real TB-303, atmospheric chords kind of like Mr. Fingers “Can You Feel It,” and a brilliant Fender Rhodes solo at the end. All my friends and I were convinced it came from Wayne Gardiner (“Classic Man” on Nervous), all the clues seems to match, but someone told me it wasn’t him, or it certainly would already have been released; and I think W. Gardiner never got around to using a real 303. Brennan and I didn’t either, although he has one now! So, what was this mysterious late-night house track? We would never find out. I played this track to Brennan, he was able to copy the loop on his Nord Lead (although it still sounds imperfect to us), and the rest was just his own arranging. And the delay at the end still sounds to short to me. Perfection has no price. We should have recorded that delay another 20 times to get it right.

05. Carlos Hernandez, “Shyboy Shyboy 123,” 1999:
Talk about perfection! Carlos and I worked in the studio all day, I mean maybe 14 hours, when it came time to mix down what he had on his hard drive. It may even have been analog tape. And this is kind of an “epic” drum and bass track, but the fact is, Carlos has the soul of Henry Mancini, so this track doesn’t have the brutal aggression which made DnB so attractive. The whole thing sounds to me like those pretty kalimbas at the end of Earth Wind & Fire’s “Power.” Actually, Brennan was nearby while we worked in the studio, and I think after 13 hours, I offered the following practical advice which sounded accidentally sarcastic: “You know, I’m sure Brennan could mix this down in an hour or so. Let’s take a break and maybe he can step in…” Whoops. Carlos’ back suddenly straightened up, his eyes glowed, and he said “No way, I’m not gonna let someone else finish my homework for me!” Suddenly everything started flowing. One more hour and then it was done!

Download: Daniel Wang, “Like Some Dream I Can’t Stop Dreaming”