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Music

The Last Record: Bob Moses Loves "Cream of the Crop"-era Disco

The duo chose new music from Massive Attack, Phantogram and a collection of some of the best disco ever.
Photo by Brook Linder, courtesy of Bob Moses/High Rise

First and foremost, Bob Moses are big music fans. Besides making their own unique brand of downtempo house music, the Brooklyn/Canadian house music duo, comprised of Tom Howie and Jimmy Vallance, also enlist the support of their favorite musical acts. The "Never Enough" edition of their sensual and unique 2015 debut album, Days Gone By, will drop on August 19 on Domino Records and will include remixes from acts including A-Trak, RAC, Joris Voorn and Tale Of Us.

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Finding remixers wasn't a major issue for the duo. Instead of randomly choosing producers, the two stuck to artists who spoke to them on a personal level. "They're like the kings of their specific genre of dance music," Vallance said about getting Tale of Us to remix a song. Later, he added that for all of the remixers, "There had to be a personal and musical connection to the music."

The duo are currently on the road playing a number of national and international festivals. "We live out of a suitcase now which is kind of weird, but we like that," said Howie. Upcoming festival appearances include the Way Out West Festival in Sweden and the Burn Electronica Festival Istanbul in Turkey.

We spoke with Bob Moses for "The Last Record' after a weekend of festival appearances including a performance at Chicago's Lollapalooza Music Festival. Their selections include a new music by trip hop masters and pitch-perfect selections from Paradise Garage great Larry Levan.


The Spoils/Come Near Me by Massive Attack

We just got the new Massive Attack release which is awesome. It's an A/B side release ("The Spoils" and "Come Near Me") and there's a track called "Come Near Me" where we've just been driving around LA listening to it in the car nonstop. It's just really cool. We're massive Massive Attack fans. They've been a huge inspiration for us. It's 25 years now that they've just been releasing super awesome music. That deserves respect in and of itself let alone, the new records are actually awesome. We just, just got it.

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Journey Into Paradise: The Larry Levan Story

Before that, we're really into 1970s and 1980s disco. There's this amazing record, Journey Into Paradise: The Larry Levan Story. It's got tons of Larry Levan's edits that he would play at Paradise Garage. It's basically just like rare cuts and awesome disco songs of the 80s and new wave. Everything from Yaz ("Situation (U.S. 12" mix)") to Change with the song, "A Lover's Holiday."

And like some of the bass lines and some of the production on those songs or Nile Rodgers with Sister Sledge ("Lost in Music (1984 Bernard Edwards & Nile Rodgers Remix)") are just the cream of the crop of disco, funk and new wave edits. We've kind of pilfered that for the DJ sets we play.

"You Don't Get Me High Anymore" by Phantogram

And then before that we got the new Phantogram single, which is called "You Don't Get Me High Anymore." It's awesome. Our current sound guy was touring with Phantogram and we kind of got into them a little more. I was driving in Vancouver and I heard this song on the radio and was like, "Whoa! What's this?" and it was the new Phantogram single …

We listened to it in Barcelona and then a day later, we're like, "Let's put this song on again!" And then the next day, we're like, "Let's listen to the Phantogram song again." When we were in Cali it was the song that everyone was singing, that was stuck in our heads.

Britt Julious is on Twitter.