- For those still mourning the untimely death of Glossy—Matt Moroder and Marco Niemerski's short-lived but flawlessly executed edits series—the news that Moroder has rekindled the fire with a new imprint, Little Leaf, will dry the tears. That he seems to have bettered even the high standards of their previous work will shed the black and hoist the edits flag right back to full-mast where it belongs.
While the other half of that erstwhile team is busy snaking his way into the wider public consciousness, Moroder has found new company in an accomplished, if little known, Spanish producer by the name of Nelue. His rework of Janette's 1974 euro-pop hit "Por Que Te Vas?" picks up the Glossy legacy of long builds before melodic breakdowns of hair-tingling verve. By the time a newly-fashioned bassline springs into all manner of funk to announce the anticipated verse sing-along, any vapidity in the original is long forgotten. It was an inspired choice of track to tap for dance floor value.
From one unlikely source to another: David Bowie's "The Secret Life of Arabia" is the subject of Moroder's involved editing on the B-side. Actually, the 1977 original was as close to straight-up disco as the Thin White Duke's brand of avant-pop ever came, and it wouldn't take much more than added percussion to coax a modern-day club record out of it. But then we'd be reviewing Bowie not Moroder, and smartly the German settles for only a quarter of the available bass to chop into a loopy slow-mo house track that awaits the ebulliently melodramatic warbling of "Araaaaabia" in Bowie's unique caricature of the English accent. If ever there were a quietus to the recent re-edits polemic, let it be this record.
Tracklist A Porque Te Vas (Nelue re-edit)
B Secret Secret (Matt Moroder edit)