The French say that it's the old pots that make the best soup, and that is especially true of the Belgian label R&S Records, one of the pioneers of electronic music in Europe (founded in 1984), who had the good idea of digging deep into the back catalogue and re-releasing two singles from one of the giants of the Dutch scene, Maarten van der Vleuten, which originally appeared in 1992 under his alias Integrity. The two records are hard to find, but not forgotten, as proven by the price of Living in a Fantasy, which sells for €145 (!) on Discogs. It's sobering to think that Renaat Vandepapeliere, the R of R&S, thought that these tracks didn't fit with the label's line. So he decided to open a sub-division, Outrage Records, to publish music from Maarten van der Vleuten, who remembers: "every two weeks, I'd drive to Ghent to show Renaat my new stuff. We went direct to the mastering studio and chose things for release. I had a blank page to shape the label's sound."
And to listen to this re-release – which brings together the singles The Way I Live and Living in a Fantasy – one gets a decent idea of why Renaat offered him a section of his label. The album opens with The Way I Live, a baroque track (not to mention completely nutty), with its synthesiser that slides surreptitiously into the music, creeping up on the listener. It gives the impression of having been recorded live and released immediately, with the band cutting out at points while waiting for the synth to come back in, which it does, revealing a different theme each time. Next, we have Summer Love with its house keyboard, and then Sandalwood, a sure-fire dancefloor hit with its psychedelic synths and disorienting bassline and a piano that flies off in all directions – proof that musicality and dance music can go together.
The next two numbers have rather more Detroit about them, with the soulful techno of the exalting Living in a Fantasy, and Cedarwood, where listeners will note the tones of the Roland Juno-106 synthesiser (which Daft Punk used on Homework). The final pieces were written in collaboration with Mike Kivits, aka DJ Aardvarck, another godfather of the Batavian scene. The carnivalesque instant hit Nightshift immediately sets heads bopping with its restless bassline, its stop-start beat and its whistle blasts; while Intens would not have been out of place on Transmat, the label of Derrick May, a founding father of techno. Had it come out on Transmat, perhaps we wouldn't have had to wait twenty five years for a re-release… © Smaël Bouaici / Qobuz