It’s amazing how quickly time flies. I already wrote in the Discogs article about DJ Pierre, who passed away a few years ago, and thus received special attention from me again. That was at the end of 2012 and seems like two years ago at the most. I feel the same way about Mehdi, who died a year before Pierre.
September 13 marked the sixth anniversary of Mehdi’s death and regardless of that, I actually picked Signatune at random just before to hear this extraordinary and incredibly energetic track again. This track seems a little lost, almost pointless, in the Lucky Boy album, as it starts practically with the hook* and, with a running time of just over a minute, is also quite brisk at the end. It follows the style of the album to the extreme and not only serves the French techno-like house, but also reflects Mehdi’s hip-hop past with the short and DJ Tool-like tracks.
The entire Ed Banger squad around Busy P have flooded Instagram with posts about Mehdi’s devotion this year, and rightly so. Many other musicians, including A-Trak, did the same, and it was A-Trak who paid a wonderful tribute to Mehdi with his 2011 minimix. When Signatune appears in this mix (at minute 2:40) I get almost painful goose bumps, and that’s not the only reason why this track is firmly in my top 3 all-time favourites.
Thomas Bangalter’s edit was used for the official Signatune video:
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Preview picture Photo Credit: Michael Grech via flickr, CC-lizensiert
* Hook or hookline: the most concise, character-giving feature of a song (if anyone asks).
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