Review
So we come to June 1991 and Deep Heat 10 – The Awakening. This one has no words of wisdom to impart. Just a tracklist, credits, photographs and graphics of an alien.
Get on board with The KLF and the rather sluggish Benio Over And Out version of Last Train To Trancentral. This drugged-up vibe continues on The Shamen’s sprawling Hyperreal before all hell breaks lose with Bizarre Inc and their storming belter Playing With Knives. Before Trumpton there was Sycopath; Urban Hype’s neatly atmospheric Sycopath. Also receiving a Quadrant Mix were Greed and Give Me. A pounding scouse anthem for ravers reunited. Meanwhile Dionne’s If You Want My Love is a massive house pounder; quality beats and a killer vocal. Step back for A Man Called Adam’s laidback and almost baggy I Want To Know. Step right up to Alison Limerick’s upfront Where Loves In.
Like Alison, Gary Clail’s Human Nature was also included on the partially-mixed oddity The Hits Album. No such distractions here. Wendell Williams drops some catchy hip hop on So Groovy while Xpansions draft in Dale Joyner to spice up What You Want. The bar is really raised on MK’s underground house blast Get It Right while Shawn Christopher’s Another Sleepless Night is similarly restless. C2C’s Make Me Feel and Taste’s Super O are darker beat-driven workouts with the latter using a clever Laurie Anderson O Superman sample. Last on CD1 is a remix of KC and The Sunshine Band’s That’s The Way I Like It.
De La Soul Is Dead is a much misunderstood LP. Time has been good to it, as fresh as ever. Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey) is crucial stuff. Get ready for the ragamuffin concept on Wickedest Sound from Rebel MC and Tenor Fly. Buzz off with Tricky Disco’s illsick House Fly. Watch the sun rise to Band Of Gypsies’ jazzy Travels In Hyper Reality – vocals by Glykeria, a Greek singer. Trance time as Friends Of Matthew bewitch us with Out There. The band name is a tribute to a close friend Matthew who died at Amnesia House [One Step Beyond] in July 1990. There’s a return to more commercial tunes with Rozalla’s uptempo Faith (In The Power Of Love), Frances Nero’s Footsteps Following Me and Snap’s Megamix. Ooops Up – The Power – Cult Of Snap – Mary Had A Little Boy.
Black Box’s Strike It Up as remixed by DJ Lelewel: 6/10. Doing better are Cartouche with the insistent Feel The Groove. Lonnie Gordon struggles to catch the break on Gonna Catch You. Move over darling for Sue Chaloner’s uplifting Answer My Phone. Raze are back and laying down the law on Bass Power. And a collaboration between Richie Hawtin, Dan Bell and John Acquaviva can only mean anarchy; Backlash is superb, a relentless surge of dark techno. Anything else after this is an anti-climax. Seeing us off – Dee Dee Brave’s Yello-sampling So Many Roads and The Farm’s leaden pall Don’t Let Me Down.
Favourite tracks
De La Soul – Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey)
Bizarre Inc. – Playing With Knives (Quadrant Mix)
Cybersonik – Backlash
Band Of Gypsies – Travels In Hyper Reality
Lest we forget
Friends Of Matthew – Out There
A Pop Fan's Dream 
Often the Deep Heat’s used to disappoint with their selection of tracks that weren’t Top 40 hits – not this one! Bar the tailing off in quality at the end of Disc 2, there’s lots of good stuff here.
In fact, both ‘Faith (In The Power Of Love)’ and ‘Playing With Knives’ are here after both missing the Top 40 the first time round!
Agree Andy. People said that they ran out of steam; I certainly didn’t think so and really enjoyed the last four or five of them. A review of the final one, Deep Heat 11 – Spirit Of Ecstasy will appear on 25 October.
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