Pitchfork

House, as aficionados know, began as disco, spun by Chicago DJs like Frankie Knuckles and Ron Hardy for mostly gay clubgoers who came to dance. Knuckles himself had previously played alongside disco legend Larry Levan at New York's Continental Baths. House became its own genre when pioneering upstarts like Jamie Principle, Jesse Saunders, and Farley Jackmaster Funk started using basic equipment-- Roland 808 or 909 drum machines, TB-303 bassline machines, eventually some keyboards-- to make their own repetitive, hypnotic rhythm tracks for the DJs to play. DFA signee Hercules & Love Affair's "HercHouse Mix" of former Ian Drury accomplice Chaz Jankel's "Get Myself Together" sits right on that cusp, between New York disco and Chicago house, at a time when dance music listeners' ears may be ready for another shift.

Hercules & Love Affair, aka Brooklyn's Andrew Butler, has already shown love for Chicago house by asking Knuckles to remix the floating, Antony-led disco track "Blind", which we recently put on repeat. The name Hercules & Love Affair even echoes the moniker of Chicago house producer Hercules. And Jankel, for his part, was recording dance-oriented solo work away from Drury and the Blockheads at the same time house was coming into its own during the early- to mid-1980s. (His 1985 hit "Number One" recently made its way onto a Wiz Khalifa remix.) "Get Myself Together" originally appeared as the new track on Jankel's 2007 solo best-of My Occupation, and its tingling funk and spacey synths, together with Jankel's sensuous falsetto, make for an impressive disco record in its own right. The "HercHouse Mix", however, reverts to old-school drum-machine pings and rudimentary synths, conjuring up the spirit of 80s Chicago while adding plenty of sumptuous details, like robot vocals and pinwheeling strings, en route to hedonistic abandon. Equally impressive is the "HercBump" mix, from the same 12", with its smooth keyboards and hi-NRG bass line.

[from the Chaz Jankel remixes 12"; out soon on Tirk]