With this year’s heatwave well on its way, it seems to be that time of year when releases almost demand sunglasses be worn during listening. The latest is from Black, aka Portugal’s Nelson Gomes. A producer who is no stranger to a bit of blue sky, under his Black alias he’s been cooking up disco and afrobeat edits for Tiago’s Outerzona13 label, with last year’s Black EP raising hands on dancefloors around the world.
Sticking to his guns, ‘Keep it Fit’ should be doing just the same, taking Brenda Harris’ disco bomb ‘Making Love Will Keep You Fit’ and cutting it in just the right places to leave a real weapon of pure funk. Letting Brenda kick things off with a bang, eventually it’s the turn of that wandering bassline and wah wah guitar solos to take centre stage.
Black – Stay Shape Make Some Love EP is out now on Outerzona13. As we know next to nothing about Black, we also asked some quick-fire questions to lift the veil.
Does your Black alias deal strictly in edits?
No, the thing is that I’m always so busy with Gala Drop, Principe and Filho Único that I have no time to finish most of my own projects. I’m working for almost a year on an EP for Interzona13, also finishing a few tracks that I’m doing with Niagara (hopefully for Interzona). At last, this year I will finish a more abstract record that I’m working on.
What made you choose Tiago’s Outerzona label as a home for your output so far?
Tiago is a really closed friend (he started Gala Drop with me in 2004). I just showed him some of the tracks I had been doing over the years and he got back to me saying we would do an EP for me, which is great. I can say everything I want ahah.
Could you tell us a bit about your new EP? What made you pick those three particular originals and how did it all come together?
Nothing smart, it’s just tracks that caught my attention and made me feel I could rebuild them in a certain way and turn them more useable on the dancefloor. I didn’t pick them, Tiago did and put them together. I just send him tracks that I’m working on and he tells me the ones he wants to release.
