Ahead of their official induction into the house music hall of fame with their House Masters Chocolate Puma compilation, we asked Rene and Gaston to give us a little insight into what some of the tracks mean to them. They duly obliged with stories of battling against record labels, creating a gay anthem and Pete Tong asking for a replacement copy after he played a certain track to death.
CD1
Chocolate Puma feat.Colonel Red 'For Your Love 2011'
Our latest single with Colonel Red. This one was very tricky because we replayed and recreated an old disco sample. It might not sound like it, but this is one of our most complex productions to date.
The Good Men 'Give It Up' (2011 Edit)
We originally made this track as a jingle for Zki's [Rene] radio show. We made it with really cheap equipment, like this crappy mixer with only treble and bass knobs and a pair of broken speakers, as we didn't have any money at that time. After we finished it we thought 'this is not bad, maybe we should release it'. Our record company at that time didn't really believe in it but after plenty of persistence we eventually got them convinced to put it on a B-side. It ended up being our most successful record ever.
Chocolate Puma 'I Wanna Be U' (Rework)
This was the first Chocolate Puma release ever. It was inspired by the early 2000 2-step garage and the stuff Missy Elliott & Timbaland were doing at that time; those skippy, syncopated rhythms. It features the vocals of Evo, a guy we spotted singing on the streets. The record company didn't like it (again) so we decided to put it on a white label with just an email address on it. We totally forgot about it, but after a few months we checked the email account and there was this message from a certain Pete Tong asking for a new copy as his one was worn out.
Chocolate Puma 'Tonco Tone'
This one almost didn't get a release as we didn't think much of it and it ended up at the back of our CD wallet. Luckily Andy Daniell spotted a small YouTube clip of us fooling around in the studio with this track. The rest is history as they say.
Bingo Players vs Chocolate Puma 'Disco Electrique' (Vocal Mix)
This was a track we had laying around in the studio for a couple of years. The Bingo Players heard it and suggested they do a version. It ended up being pretty good!
Boris Dlugosch feat. Roisin Murphy 'Never Enough'(Chocolate Puma 2011 Remix)
This is one of our favourite remixes. The original track was a bit jazzy, like ‘Sing It Back’. We replaced all of Boris' music with some simple but dramatic chords giving the track a totally different vibe, and we've updated the 2002 remix to a 2011 version.
Jark Prongo vs Franky Rizardo 'Big Bam Cordoba' (Chocolate Puma Edit)
A fun bootleg we did just for our sets. The reactions on this one were so good that we decided to give it an official release.
Chocolate Puma feat. Colonel Red 'Back Home'
This track was made in just a few hours. Sometimes things in the studio just 'happen', where other times you're endlessly tweaking a synth and getting nowhere.
René Et Gaston 'Vallée De L'armes' (Remaster)
After we got ourselves some money from 'Give It Up' we bought ourselves our first proper synth, a Korg Wavestation, and made this track. Inspiration came from the Amsterdam Roxy sound, pioneered by dutch DJ Dimitri and his partner Eric Nouhan. Listening to this track is a bit like looking at old pictures of yourself - a bit awkward, but at the same time it puts a smile on your face.
Chocolate Puma 'Dub of Boom' (Remaster)
This one was a Swedish House Mafia favourite; they used to open every set with this. The chords were made on a Juno 106 synth inspired by Inner City's ‘Big Fun’.
CD2
Chocolate Puma 'Always & Forever' (Original Mix)
This one was sitting on our hard drive for 5 years as a mid-tempo broken beat track. After hearing what Gregor Salto was doing with his latin-flavored tracks at that time, we knew what we had to do with it. We still play it from time to time and people still love it.
Chocolate Puma 'Learning' (2011 Edit)
This one never got an official release, but there has always been a buzz around it. We did a little edit for today's dancefloors and it finally gets a proper release, so it’s a true exclusive to the compilation.
Fierce Ruling Diva 'Rubb It In 2010' (Chocolate Puma Remix)
It was quite hard to remix this classic Dutch rave record, but by keeping it simple we think we managed to capture the feeling we had when we played the original version in the early '90's, while still making it sound up to date.
Bingo Players vs Chocolate Puma 'Touch Me' (Vintage Mix – Re-master)
Touch Me was the first collaboration between the Bingo's (as we like to call them) and us. Bart B More's remix did great things for it as it ended up at No.1 in the Beatport chart! We think our Vintage Mix didn't get the attention it deserved so we decided to re-master it and put it on the compilation. We still love the drums on this one.
Chocolate Puma 'Morning Rain' (Remaster)
We were just mucking around with some old school Motown chords when David Goncalves (the guy who also sings on Always And Forever, A Star Is Born & Learning) started to do some singing in the vocal booth. David was just warming up but we thought what he was doing was great, so we decided to use his first take. It might not be perfect, but sometimes the vibe is so much more important than getting all notes right.
Klatsch! 'God Save The Queer' (2011 Edit)
We always loved the gay crowds, and this was our dedication to them. We even put the record in a pink sleeve! Talking about gay crowds, the first time we toured in the USA, like in 1992 or 1993, we did a sound check in this club called The Tunnel. There was this ball room (you know, like at Ikea) so we jumped in to play in it and take funny pictures. Later that night we discovered what was really going on in the ball room! You can imagine those are the funniest pictures ever.
René Et Gaston 'Merluche Ideale'
This is us fooling around with our 909 drum machine and Nord Lead synth. When we first released this one, we only sold maybe 300 copies, even though Kevin Saunderson put it on his X-Mix compilation. Years later Sven Vath re-discovered the track and it got picked up by German underground label Artless and it suddenly became a big underground cult hit.
Jark Prongo 'Spadet' (Remaster)
This is a bit of the same story as with Merluche Ideale. It never did anything when it was first released on our Pssst Music label, but became very hip when it got picked up by Artless years later.
CD3
Jark Prongo 'Shake It' (Remaster)
This was the first ever Jark Prongo release. Back in the days we had so much success with our Fresh Fruit label, that we thought we needed an underground project. So we made ‘Shake It’, came up with this 'person' Jark Prongo and pressed it on yellow vinyl with as little info as possible on the label.
Chocolate Puma vs Hardsoul 'R2G2' (Remaster)
We made this track with the Hardsoul brothers Greg & Roog. We were doing the Amsterdam In The House compilation and at the photo shoot Roog came up with the idea to do an exclusive track for the compilation.
Jark Prongo 'Movin’ Thru Your System' (2011 Remix)
This was a huge underground hit. It got signed to Hooj Choons, it came with a remix by Dave Clarke and it got hammered by the likes of Sasha and John Digweed. The track was really an accident as we plugged our 909 drum machine in the wrong input on our patchbay. The 909 kick drum suddenly got our Korg MS20 synth triggered and it started to make all these great noises. Last year we sold the mixing desk this and many other records were made on to a German Death Metal group.
Sole Fusion 'Bass Tone' (Chocolate Puma Remix - Remaster)
This was not easy. Remixing one of our favourite tunes ever, by our favourite beat makers ever. So we decided to stay close the original Masters At Work production while adding some of our own flavour.
René Et Gaston 'Coupe Brésil' (Remaster)
This one was supposed to be the follow up to ‘Give It Up’, but that track blew up and kept going for more than a year. We did not have the patience to wait so we decided to release Coupe Brésil under a new project, René Et Gaston, which are our real names.
South Street Player '(Who?) Keeps Changing Your Mind' (Chocolate Puma Fresh Fruit Vocal Edit)
Back in the 90’s we licensed this one from Strictly Rhythm for our Fresh Fruit label. A few years back it got picked up by Strictly again and we did a little edit of our original remix to bring it up to date.
House Masters Chocolate Puma is out 11th July - listen & pre-order
http://www.defected.com/store/details/Various/House+Masters+-+Chocolate+Puma/2228/d
(source- www.defected.com)
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