Virgo Four Do You Know Who You Are Rar

1989 studio album by Virgo

Virgo
Studio anthology by Virgo
Released	1989 (1989)
Studio	Rax Trax, Chicago, United States
Genre	Chicago house
Length	36:56
Label	Radical Rush Hour (reissue)
Producer	Eric Lewis Merwyn Sanders
Virgo chronology
Virgo (1989) Resurrection (2011)
Reissue cover
Artwork for Blitz Hour Recordings' 2010 reissue

Virgo is the eponymous debut studio album by American business firm music duo Virgo Iv, released in 1989 on Radical Records in the United Kingdom. It compiles two 12" EPs released in the United States on Trax Records, Practice You Know Who You Are? past Virgo 4 and Ride past M.Due east.. Both were pseudonyms of Eric Lewis and Merwyn Sanders, two art students and childhood friends from Chicago. The anthology was first reissued in 2010 on Blitz Hour Recordings.

While rooted in the Chicago business firm mode, Virgo features a distinctive sound that is dreamier and more than introspective than that of the duo's contemporaries, also incorporating elements of acid house and deep business firm. Although Lewis and Sanders fabricated no effort to promote the album, its idiosyncratic music and the mystery surrounding the band's identity turned it into an underground cult classic over the years. Although it remains largely unknown, Virgo is now recognized every bit an essential release among house enthusiasts, and is considered past some as the greatest anthology of its genre.

Groundwork and product [edit]

Childhood friends Eric Lewis and Merwyn Sanders were born and raised in Chicago, United States. At first, they formed a band chosen Quadraphonics in middle schoolhouse, with Lewis on guitar, Sanders on drums, DJ Calvin on bass, and "another friend named Edgwick" on guitar.^[one] In high schoolhouse, only Lewis and Sanders stuck together, a time when they caused a pulsate machine, a Moog synthesizer and other equipment used by the burgeoning Chicago house scene. They had discovered house music at high school parties (like Mendel Catholic High School) and nightclubs such equally Ron Hardy'southward Muzic Box, the Ability Plant and The Warehouse; the duo likewise frequented nightclubs in Toronto, Canada. Sanders recalls: "That was 'eighty or so, '81. We just started doing a bunch of music at dwelling house. At that fourth dimension we got a 4-track. So, that's what we would do, get to school, and we would hang out and do music... and become shoot some ball, then piece of work some more music."^[i]

Lewis and Sanders commencement approached Larry Sherman of Trax - a label that had a capital role in the development of firm music - in 1984 or 1985, as the genre was beginning to take off. As titles in his catalogue were beginning to chart and the duo were unknown in the club scene, Sherman shrugged their demos off. Country Street Records were also uninterested. At that time, the duo started attending the Fine art Institute of Chicago, and began to produce new music in its sound room. When they came dorsum to Sherman in 1988 with boosted fabric, he agreed to put it out. Sanders and Lewis produced the album at Rax Trax, where they met Rick Barnes (who ran the studio) and Derek Make, members of the Nicholas Tremulis Band. Although Lidell Townsell was enlisted to help the duo with production, they concluded up doing it themselves. Regarding the recording, Sanders stated: "Nigh of our stuff we played alive except for the pulsate machine. Everything else we got so used to just playing, I guess just from the repetition, we didn't use a sequencer at all. We showed up at the studio, had our keyboards, hit "Tape." It'due south kind of like a alive session with the keyboards."^[ane] They recorded all the songs in one live session, quickly moving on from rails to track.

Release and reception [edit]

When they approached Trax Records, Sanders and Lewis called themselves G.Eastward., a reference to their initials, "with a possible nod to the Gary Numan tune of the same name as well."^[ii] However, and despite Sanders' complaints, label head Larry Sherman insisted in releasing half of the material nether the pseudonym Virgo Iv as an effort to associate the duo with Virgo, a sort of supergroup consisting of Marshall Jefferson, Vince Lawrence, and Adonis. In 1989, the material was released every bit ii 12" EPs in the United States - Practise You lot Know Who You Are? past Virgo Four, and later Ride past G.Due east. The aforementioned year, the tracks were compiled and released as a CD anthology titled Virgo in the United kingdom. It was licensed to Radical Records (also known as Radikal), the house offshoot of 80s urban label StreetSounds.

Neither Sherman nor Virgo made an effort to promote the anthology or contact other DJs. Reflecting on this, Gabriele of PopMatters felt that "it's testament to the emotional resonance of the music itself that information technology grew over the years into something of an underground classic.^[2] Sanders has said: "See Eric and I were so kinda, sometimes I really kinda regret it, 'cause we were so detached from everything. [...] We were really but about the music. As presently as that was washed, nosotros were going back and yet working on new stuff. Nosotros were looking at that every bit just a foot in the door to do something even bigger."^[i] Equally the Radical Records album was solely attributed to Virgo, confusion arose over the band's identity as it "gained traction over the ensuing years."^[two] Alexis Petridis stated that "no creative person sums up the unknowability and mystique of the early business firm scene quite like Virgo."^[3]

More recently, tracks off the anthology take been featured on compilations from Warp and Soul Jazz Records. Virgo was remastered and re-released equally a double 12" and CD in 2010 on Rush 60 minutes Records, as role of their House of Trax reissue programme. This edition featured new artwork, "crisper highs and a slightly punchier low-cease."^[4]

Limerick [edit]

A Chicago house album, Virgo 's music draws elements from the local deep firm and acid firm styles, and bears influence and similitaries with the work of Larry Heard, Fingers Inc. and Armando. Parallels can be established between its "futuristic grooves" and other gimmicky trip the light fantastic styles such as techno and Balearic beat.^[2] However, Virgo has been noted for its idiosyncratic audio, more introspective and dreamy than other mechanically intense styles from its era, Phuture's "Acrid Trax" for case. In a 2009 interview, Merwyn Sanders stated: "We were into a lot of classic stuff, Kraftwerk and Gary Numan and a lot of jazz stuff. That'southward what I grew up around, listening. My dad was a huge jazz fan, so that was only engrained in my caput without me fifty-fifty knowing it. So I guess that'southward what you get a fiddling sense of with that album nosotros did."^[1] Fact chosen it a "deep post-acrid" anthology, and wrote that despite being like to other gimmicky firm releases, "it stands lone, and its cognitive merely generously bully evocation of the urban nightscape has never been matched for elegance or vigil."^[5] Alexis Petridis of The Guardian described it as "music you might make the 24-hour interval afterward a drugged-out bacchanal – contemplative and contemplative, shot through with a creeping, contagious melancholy."^[3] Joe Muggs described Virgo as "archetypal firm music through and through: information technology is design as much as it is art, absolutely attuned to the proportions and metabolism of the human body in a technological order." He also noted that despite the "soulfulness and the spindly stripping down of its production", the album is non "less powerful than noisier, bassier or thicker music."^[6]

The first side of Virgo includes Virgo 4's Practise You Know Who You Are? EP. Its opening track, "Do Y'all Know Who You Are", features an "odd, nagging, guitar line" reminiscent of funk music.^{[iii] [half dozen]} Following track "In a Vision" has been described every bit "strutting space-age bleep-house".^[4] Electro rhythms can be heard on "Accept Me Higher", a track with "euphorically melancholic reggaematics".^{[4] [6]} Richard Carnes of Resident Advisor felt that "Going Thru Life"'s "lolloping pianoforte riff" showcases the duo's "visceral approach to music making." He also considered that the Ride material - included as the album's 2nd side - "should actually be looked upon every bit a different entity to the first half", as it features a "darker and more vocal-led direction to their first EP." He added that Ride "could easily slot into a set of contemporary techno."^[4] A "low-slung firm" rail,^[4] "Schoolhouse Hall" alludes to the loftier schoolhouse parties were Lewis and Sanders were introduced to house music. "Never Desire To Lose You" has been referred to equally "jacking balladry".^[four] Closing track "All the Time" has been described equally "a spirited attempt to introduce the sound of slap bass into the lexicon of house."^[iii]

Legacy [edit]

Despite not being a household proper name, Virgo is at present recognized as an essential release amongst house enthusiasts and, co-ordinate to Fact, it "is considered by many to be the greatest business firm record ever made." The publication listed Virgo equally the 2nd best album of the 1980s, with Joe Muggs writing:

It's a metaphor I've used earlier, merely when you hear something as perfectly designed equally this, it'due south like getting an amazing chair – 1 that is comfortable, beautiful, refined and usable every day. When you go something like that, regardless of its historic period, do yous then carelessness it or declare it obsolete or decide to adhere a 5th leg to it just because your neighbours get a different chair made of some new structure material?^{[half dozen]}

Virgo was too included in The Guardian 's 2007 list of the 1000 Albums to Hear Earlier You Die, and The Mojo Collection: The Greatest Albums of All Time.^[viii] In a retrospective review, Richard Carnes of Resident Advisor awarded the album four and a half out of five stars, calling Do You Know Who You Are? "the finest house music 12-inch e'er created." He also considered "Take Me College" to exist "one of the all-time electronic music tracks of all fourth dimension."^[4] "In a Vision" was included in the 1999 compilation Warp 10+i: Influences, a compilation of music that influenced the founders and artists on Warp Records.^[9]

Rails listing [edit]

All tracks are written past Eric Lewis and Merwyn Sanders.

Side one

No.	Championship	Length
1.	"Practice You Know Who You Are"	4:45
2.	"In a Vision"	4:47
3.	"Going Thru Life"	4:37
4.	"Take Me College"	four:48

Side two

No.	Championship	Length
five.	"Ride"	4:32
6.	"School Hall"	four:25
7.	"Never Want to Lose You"	iv:43
eight.	"All the Fourth dimension"	4:xix
Total length:		36:56

Notes

• "Practise You Know Who Y'all Are" listed as "Do You lot Know Who Y'all Are?" (with question mark) on the characterization.
• "Never Want To Lose You lot" is misspelled "Never Desire To Loose Yous" on the label.

Personnel [edit]

Credits adapted from the liner notes of Virgo.^[10]

• Eric Lewis – producer
• Merwyn Sanders – producer
• Idest – artwork design
• Trax Records – phonographic copyright
• Sanlar Publishing – publisher
• Radical Records – marketing
• Spartan Records – distribution

Release history [edit]

Run into also [edit]

• Frankie Knuckles
• Jamie Principle
• Detroit techno
• Rave music

References [edit]

1. ^ ^{a b c d e} Arnold, Jacob (26 April 2009). "Merwyn Sanders Interview". Gridface.com. Retrieved v September 2016.
2. ^ ^{a b c d} Gabriele, Timothy (6 July 2011). "Virgo Four: Resurrection". PopMatters . Retrieved 2 September 2016.
3. ^ ^{a b c d} Petridis, Alexis (12 January 2016). "Cult heroes: Virgo – obscure Chicago house duo full of mournful mystique". guardian.com . Retrieved 2 September 2016.
4. ^ ^{a b c d e f m} Carnes, Richard (xi March 2010). "RA Reviews: Virgo - Virgo". Resident Advisor, Resident Advisor Ltd. Retrieved 7 September 2016.
5. ^ "Virgo's 1989 LP to exist reissued". Fact. The Vinyl Factory. 5 January 2010. Retrieved ii September 2016.
6. ^ ^{a b c d} Muggs, Joe (24 June 2013). "The 100 Best Albums of the 1980s: Virgo - Virgo". Fact. The Vinyl Factory.
7. ^ Acclaimed Music – Virgo. Acclaimed Music. Retrieved on ii September 2016.
8. ^ Bush, John. "Various Artists - Warp 10+1: The Influences". AllMusic. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved 5 September 2016.
9. ^ Virgo (Vinyl LP) (liner notes). Virgo. Radical Records. 1989. VIRGO 1. CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)

External links [edit]

• Virgo at Discogs (listing of releases)
• Virgo at Charge per unit Your Music

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgo_%28album%29

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