A low-key anthem featured on Louie Vega’s brilliant 2022 album Expansions In The NYC, “Free To Love” features UK singer/songwriter Karen Harding, a vocalist whose clean and clear tone and delivery transport the listener back to the very best of ’80s and ’90s dance-pop.
This bumper package of reworks opens with a vintage “Disco Juice” reworking by David Morales, which sounds so legit that it could easily have been created by the other legendary Morales — mixdown and edit OG, John. Filled with classic string and horn stabs, live bass and screaming gospel organs, the track only enters the modern dance era later on when some filtering and big room House drum fills remind us just which Morales we are listening to. David’s “Disco Loop” takes us down a trackier, groove-based route, designed to hold the dancefloor, and just begging to be mixed.
Longtime Vega collaborator Josh Milan turns in a bumping, raw soul-jam of a remix, with an original chord progression that gives a knowing wink to Bill Withers’ “Lovely Day.” Something about the arrangement of this version brings out the purity and fragility of Harding’s vocal performance, and somehow calls to mind Louie and Kenny’s classic MAW work with India.
Finally, Chicago’s own Mike Dunn delivers an effortlessly cool “Black Love” version of “Free To Love,” with a chilled Rhodes piano and deceptively simple two-note string lines soaring above a simply undeniable rhythm section. So good, and my personal pick of the bunch.
Louie Vega & Karen Harding: Free To Love (Remixes) (Nervous Records / Digital)
1. Louie Vega & Karen Harding: Free To Love (David Morales Disco Juice Vocal Mix) (10:46)
2. Louie Vega & Karen Harding: Free To Love (David Morales Disco Juice Instrumental) (10:46)
3. Louie Vega & Karen Harding: Free To Love (David Morales Disco Loop Mix) (05:16)
4. Louie Vega & Karen Harding: Free To Love (David Morales Disco Loop Instrumental) (05:16)
5. Louie Vega & Karen Harding: Free To Love (Josh Milan Free Mix) (14:34)
6. Louie Vega & Karen Harding: Free To Love (Josh Milan Free Instrumental) (14:34)
7. Louie Vega & Karen Harding: Free To Love (Mike Dunn Black Love Mix) (07:13)
8. Louie Vega & Karen Harding: Free To Love (Mike Dunn Black Love Mental) (07:13)
⚪️ Disclosure Statement: This record was submitted as a promo.
Previous Coverage:
NYC House: Louie Vega on the making of Expansions in the NYC (2022)
Louie Vega: Music Is A Family (2018)
Louie Vega Interview (2006)
Louie Vega & Josh Milan remix Sunburst Band’s “Listen Love” (2021)
Louie Vega’s NYC DISCO is a New Classic (2018)
