This video deserves a special mention because Armand played what’s probably the most British house set ever at New Year’s Eve 2023/2024 in London. The tracks all date from the 00s and 10s. A good half of them produced by the man himself, and pretty much all of them still in heavy rotation on BBC Radio 1. Know your crowd!

So it’s no wonder the kids sing along loudly to almost everything and are having the time of their lives. The comment “Kids dancing on tracks made before they were born… The power of good music!” sums it up perfectly.

This post is part of my All Things British page.

By chance I listened to the compilation again and somehow came across the Soundcloud profile of Fingerman, who had mixed tracks from it. Nearly 3 hours at an average of 118 BPM, from funk to soul, all quite house-heavy. Pleasant to listen to, not intrusive, but the head nods similarly to Atjazz.

The set is available for download at Juno if you fancy mixing it yourself. Have fun!

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Preview image borrowed from Fingerman’s Soundcloud profile.

Hallo Montag at Suol

September 13 marked the sixth anniversary of Mehdi’s death and regardless of that, I had actually dug out Signatune by chance shortly before to hear this extraordinary and incredibly energetic track again. This track seems a little lost, almost pointless, in the Lucky Boy album, as it starts practically with the hook* and, with a running time of just over a minute, is over pretty quickly too. It follows the style of the album to the extreme and not only serves the French, rather techno-leaning house, but with its short, DJ-tool-like tracks also reflects Mehdi’s hip-hop past.

The entire Ed Banger squad around Busy P flooded Instagram with posts in remembrance of Mehdi this year, and rightly so. Many other musicians, including A-Trak, did the same, and it was A-Trak who paid a wonderful tribute to Mehdi with his minimix in 2011. When Signatune appears in this mix (at minute 2:40), I get almost painful goosebumps, and that’s not the only reason why this track is firmly in my top 3 all-time favourites.

Thomas Bangalter’s edit was used for the official Signatune video, equally brilliant:

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Featured image credit: Michael Grech via flickr, CC-licensed
* Hook or hookline: the most distinctive, character-defining feature of a song (if anyone asks).