Tracklist
A. Stages - Prins Thomas Edit 08:34
B1. I Wanna Be Myself - Gerd Janson Edit 07:20
B2. Stages Of Love - Original 05:55

Info:
Some tracks don’t need fixing. They just need a bit more room. South African composer and keyboard wizard Don Laka has been quietly sitting in DJ bags for years, especially with people who like their synth music warm, slightly
mysterious, and impossible to date properly. Somewhere between jazz funk, township pulse and studio electronics, but really just its own thing.
Stages was an obvious candidate for extension. Prins Thomas what he does best here: opens the arrangement, lets the synth lines breathe, stretches the groove until it starts floating a little higher off the ground. Nothing forced, nothing added for
the sake of it. Just more of a very good thing. I Wanna Be Myself gets a gentle nudge from Gerd Janson. The idea was simple: keep the personality, and give DJs a version that lands naturally in a modern set without losing the original charm. It’s still the same track, just standing a bit straighter.
And because the source matters, the original version of “Stages” is here as well. Always good to remember where the magic started. Three versions, no drama. Just strong music that already knew what it was doing.

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Tracklist:
A1. Don’t Make Me Fall In Love - Timmy Regisford Vocal Mix 9:19
B1. Don’t Make Me Fall In Love - Timmy Regisford Instrumental Mix 5:44
B2. Don’t Make Me Fall In Love - Gerd Janson Bass Beat Edit 4:12

Info:
“[…] it was dance music, it had lyrics, it had songs, it wasn’t all instrumental, it was basically uptempo soul music, to be exact.”*

This quote from Timmy Regisford already sums up everything you need to know about his remix of Basic Black’s “Don’t Make Me Fall In Love.” Signed to Motown during Regisford’s reign as vice president and A&R, their self-titled debut album from 1990 is a testament to the massive popularity of new jack swing at the time. In his remix, the co-founder, resident DJ, and key figure of Club Shelter reconfigures the song’s structure with the signature sounds of New York’s prime dance floor scene, while preserving the heartfelt storytelling of the lyrics and the group’s voices on top of an irresistible groove and a bassline to die for.
At the time, it was only available in the record crates of the Big Apple’s DJ elite and later on as a white label in specialist shops. This soulful, yet driving piece, however, never saw an official single release—until now. Lifted from a DAT tape in Tony Humphries’ archive and carefully and faithfully restored, it now even features a condensed, never-before-released instrumental version of the remix, as well as a bass-and-beats-only edit for mixing purposes by yours truly. New jack swing transformed into New York club music by a king. This remix is a testament to Timmy Regisford’s prowess in the studio, but also honors the roots of the music he loves and grew up on—serving as a perpetual piece of the city’s vast history in underground dance music.
Gerd Janson


*Timmy Regisford interview from Jonathan Fleming, What Kind of House Party Is This?, MIY Publishing Ltd,
1995.

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Tracklist:

A1. I Love Your Love - Original 4:18
A2. I Love Your Love - Gerd Janson Remix 6:29
A3. Oh What A Night 3:34
B1. I Love Your Love - Elado Remix 5:57
B2. I Love Your Love - Pete Dub 8:41


Lost tracks don’t stay lost forever. Running Back is proud to present the reissue of Aric’s I Love Your Love – a long-forgotten gem from the good-time party days of the early dance era. Originally created in the spirit of celebration and groove, these tracks disappeared into obscurity until a few dedicated DJs and dancers across the globe began bringing them back to life.

When Elado stumbled upon the songs and saw the magic they still held for modern dancefloors, he tracked down Aric – now better known as Dr. Aric, a paediatric public health professional – to bring the music back to the world. What followed was a journey through memory, music, and rediscovery.

The result is here: the original cuts, plus fresh remixes from Elado, Pete Blaker, and Gerd Janson. Nostalgia meets new energy, and the dancefloor wins again.


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Tracklist:
A1. 1984 Re-Edited (4:56)
A2. 1984 Retrospective Dub (4:26)
A3. 1984 GJ Bonus Beats (4:07)
B1. 2024 Retrospective Dub (5:05)
B2. 2024 Introspective Dub (5:28)

Greg Wilson returns to Running Back with another special project.
Forty years on from the release of the groundbreaking ‘Street Sounds UK Electro’ LP, ‘Real Time’ (two versions of which opened the separate sides of the album), finally gets a 12” release. Despite its prominence on ‘UK Electro’, it was the only inclusion not to be issued on 12” back in 1984.
Zer-o, like Syncbeat and Forevereaction, were the same trio – Manchester musicians, Martin Jackson and Andy Connell, and DJ Greg Wilson, making his first foray into record production. They also teamed up with rappers, Kermit and Fiddz, for the Broken Glass
track, ‘Style Of The Street’, one of the early UK hip hop releases. Fictional production and songwriting credits were added by Street Sounds to suggest a thriving British electro scene, the music having blown-up in New York during ‘82/’83, with the ‘Street Sounds Electro’
series, launched in October ’83, documenting these developments and unlocking a significant youth market who’d religiously collect these compilations.
Featured here is a Greg Wilson edit of ‘Real Time’, the ‘retrospective dub’ (the ‘UK Electro opener, which was in fact the original demo version of the track), and a Gerd Janson bonus beats edit. Flip it over and you’ll find a pair of 2024 reworks – the retrospective
dub, and the more downtempo introspective dub – courtesy of Greg and Ché Wilson, whose recent collaborations have included remixes for Gabriels and Confidence Man.


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Tracklist:
A1. If You Love Somebody
B1. If You Love Somebody – Instrumental
B2. If You Love Somebody – Gerd Janson Edit

The notion of house music as a form of uptempo soul music is intrinsic evidence with a record like the one on hand. Professor Supercool’s If You Love Somebody is many things at once: an example of a special brand of British pop music, influenced by US-American soul more or less from the get-go, the Second Summer of Love, the conception of Balearic as a music genre, the cultural interchange of European dance floors and DJs from across the pond and underground music marketing through the vessel of special one-time pressings. The mysterious Professor Supercool is actually a moniker for Dr. Rob of The Blow Monkeys’s fame, who produced the song with a veteran and legendary DJ of the Northern Soul scene „The Real Hector“ – a resident at the famous Wag Club.

Originally a part of the band’s Album Spring Time For The World, it appeared first as a special For-Promotion-Only-12“ in 1989 with limited information as a trial ballon to „avoid preconceptions“. The fear was without reason. Like the band’s other big dance floor record and Balearic fave LA Passionara a year later, it got played and supported by the DJs of its time. Next to Graeme Park at the Hacienda or Paul Oakenfold, it also got picked up by Mastermixer Tony
Humphries and became a staple at his radio and club sets for KissFm respectively Club Zanzibar. While the vocal mix found its way on said album, the preferred 12“ instrumental version has never been released anywhere else up until now and made the record go for a substantial amount of Discogs dollars.
Expanded with an edit by the label’s in-house DJ Gerd Janson that is supposed to work as a dub alternative to the vocal mix, the 12-inch and bundle download contain the original plus a faithfully restored and remastered version of the instrumental in demand. If you love this record it is impossible to let it go.



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2023 repress

Tracklist
A1. Electric Baile (Enzo Elia Vocal Edit)
A2. Electric Baile (Enzo Elia Dub Edit)
A3. Electric Baile (Enzo Elia Bonus Beats)
B1. Pushin’ Too Hard (Gerd Janson Mega mix)
B2. Pushin’ Too Hard (Gerd Janson Instrumix)


Shortinfo:
Master Plan was the Chicago based dance music project of Pepper Gomez and Tom O’Callahan. Spanning from 1984 to 1986, the groups development is in sync with the dance music scene of Chicago during that era. While their first record „Pushin’ Too Hard“ is a Windy City version of the NYC club music of the time and its European cross-pollination, „Electric Baile“ from two years later down the line is almost a quantum jump into house music. With the engineering help of Matt Warren, it bears the marks of Ron Hardy, Chip E, Farley Jackmaster Funk or the WBMX dance party craze, if you will. Here you have remastered and updated versions by Enzo Elia and Gerd Janson. The first ones’ edit attempt of „Electric Baile“ ignited this edition. A custom-tailored main mix is completed by a dub and useful bonus beat version to do, what DJs used to do. Concluded by two edits of „Pushin’ Too Hard“ by GJ, you get two great slices of yesterday that are still major dance music blue prints today.




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Tracklist

A1.XXXO
B1. ICA Beats Pt. 2 Gerd Janson Edit
B2. ICA Beats Pt. 1 Gerd Janson Edit

Release Info:
A central theme in the life and work of the British DJ pioneer Greg Wilson, UK electro is a page turner. With the seminal Street Sounds compilation from 1984 (please see Greg’s blog for the whole story) being the beacon, there are still a few overlooked corners.
XXXO by Equip is one of them. Originally intended to be part of said release and produced by Greg Wilson, Martin Jackson and Andy Connell (like most of the comp), it was turned down at the time. Sounding like a like a proto -house template with a dash of Klein & MBO, it wasn’t considered strong enough at the time, but found it’s way to the public as a one-sided 12“ in 2006, it felt like a brand-new track as it perfectly correlated with the electro influenced underground dance music mainstream at the time (Chicken Lips et al.). Here it is again: remastered, rekindled and unreduced cut to 45rpm. For full disclosure please see the liner notes on the back cover.
Pressed and released for the first time on this planet though are the ICA Beats Pt 1 & Pt 2. Intended to be backing tracks for a UK Electro live appearance in August ´84, they haven’t seen the light of day until now. Both Restored and re-edited with some help of label owner Gerd Janson, they are fierce examples of the sound at the time. Sitting between rhythm tracks and experimental drum machine compositions (and a short greeting from their creators’ other project Syncbeat), it makes you wonder how one could have lived for so long without them. The history of the past enables you to dream of the future.



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Non Exclusive Italian Import

Tracklist

A1 Schmutz - Love Games remix 06:15
A2 Schmutz - Love Games dub 05:17
A3 Luc Van Acker & Anna Domino - Zanna remix 04:36

B1 Luc Van Acker & Anna Domino - Zanna instrumental 04:36
B2 Scooter - You remix 05:57
B3 Scooter - You dub - 05:57

"All songs remixed by Joris Biesmans, bringing you the sound of B"

Berlin-based synthoholic and Watergate resident Biesmans steps up for the sixth installment of Running Back's Super Sound Singles series. Taking inspiration from Confetti's 1988 new beat smash This Is The Sound Of C, Biesmans revisits his Belgian roots and reimagines three gems from Belgium's rich '80s music scene.


Firstly, Biesmans gets to grips with synth pop stalwarts Schmutz and their '80s breakthrough Love Games, polishing the track up with a motorik disco sheen and chunky bass arpeggios. The remix swaps the new romantic vibe of the original for 8-bit arcade game energy, and calls to mind robotic dance moves and freeze frame video. It's a reboot of a long lost classic that sounds even better the second time round, and will transport dancers young and old alike onto a timeless dancefloor.


Next up for reinterpretation is Luc van Acker and Anna Domino's quirky woodblock and piano-led song Zanna. Biesmans transforms it from a melancholic anthem to lost love, and into a darkly uplifting discotheque burner, as icy melodies, synth pads and guitar licks create the perfect bed for Anna Domino's plaintive vocals to float on top. As per the other versions, the instrumental dub version follows, and highlights just how Biesmans has built each of these remixes from the ground up, existing as stand alone tracks in their own right.


Rounding off the 12" Biesmans turns his attention to new wave rock band Scooter and their ode to self-reliance You, slowing it down slightly to a heavier beat, with hi hat triplets and a touch of Radiophonic Workshop atmosphere. By condensing the original to its essential vocal and synth melodies, Biesmans reconstructs a pumping 130bpm monster, certified to supercharge ravers all through the night. It rounds off a neatly balanced EP that sees Biesmans take the emotional core of influential tracks from his upbringing and put them in a different context, reworking them to share with a whole new generation.



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Tracklist
A. Kairo
B1. Kozak2000
B2. Kairo (Boris Dlugosch Edit)

Shortinfo:

A holy grail of European electronic dance music, and a classic at the Italian disco scene and Hamburg's Front club alike (you might have heard it on their recent Mastermix), is finally available again. Produced in 1984 by two mysterious friends during a hazy studio session in the small town of Aschaffenburg, Germany, it is best described by Discogs member goulashdj as “a funny version of some Imam praying on top of an electronic Groove”, .“Kairo” is all you want from an oddball record: fun and funky, weird and wonderful. Featuring original vocals by one of the two friends, it seems to be offensive to religious fanatics and devout Muslims (you better watch, where you play out the original). Therefore, a philosophical advisory or religious warning: “No religion, god or believer was harmed during the creation of this record. We believe in the right to believe or disbelief in anything and everything that isn’t inhuman.” For safety reasons, it includes a persecution-proof instrumental version by Boris Dlugosch as well as the original B-side and completely atheistic “Kosak 2000”. And to close with Mark Twain: Man was made at the end of the week's work, when God was tired.




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Tracklist
A1. Music
A2. Music (Remix)
A3. More Music
B1. Music (Boris Dlugosch Remix)
B2. Music (Boris Dlugosch Tribal Reprise)
B1. Music (Boris Dlugosch Bonus Beats)

Shortinfo:

When I first stumbled across mix tapes out of Hamburg's seminal Front Club (with Klaus Stockhausen and Boris Dlugosch at the helm) during the glorious and carefree early days of the popularized internet, there were certain tracks on them that struck a chord and had me rewinding the mp3-player.
In fact there was one specifically, I couldn't stop listening to. The mixture of an infectious bass line, a super sharp snare, "music" and "harmony" vocal snippets, happy claps and synths lines that evoked pictures of a convertible going down a coastline, and - to top it all off - a tribal chant, was irresistible. After some intensive track-id-hunting pre-shazam, I found out that the heaven-sent hymn was Music by an act called Syncbeat. Originally released in 1984 during the craze that was called UK Electro via Street Sounds resp. Streetwave and later licensed to German omnivore Zyx Records. A joint venture between the Electro-Funk mastermind,DJ pioneer and edit maestro Greg Wilson as well as Manchester musicians Martin Jackson & Andy Connell, it is exactly that type of dance track that eludes any classification - as you can see from my description above. Or to cite Greg Wilson himself from one of his essays on the subject of UK electro: "The track that received the best response was "Music" by Syncbeat, which was full of good vibes and could have easily been re-vamped down the line as a House track."
34 years later down the line, and in the wake of mix-cd-compilation by Stockhausen and Dlugosch portraying those divine years at the Front, Music is available again for the second time on this planet. Carrying all three mixes of the original and equipped with an extended Re-Mix, a bonus beat and a tribal reprise all perfectly conceived executed by Boris Dlugosch, this like a dream came true and a welcome addition to the Super Sound Singles series on Running Back.




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2023 REPRESS EDITION

Tracklist
A1.Get Closer (Tiger & Woods Remix)
B1.Get Closer (Gerd Janson Coy Club Edit)
B2.Get Closer (DJ Oyster Tool Time)
Shortinfo:
Here we are again! Courtesy of Valerie Dore. Numero due in the Super Sound Singles series on Running Back continues on the re-issue/update tip of inexpensive records.
Big in the charts in 1985, the Italian queen of "romantic dance" made her second single "Get Closer" a clairvoyant poem about… errr… life and love: "when the world is running down - get closer"!
Think stonewashed jeans, endless summers on Italian beaches, boats coming back to the shore.
Remixed by fellow country men Tiger & Woods, "Get Closer" gets sandblasted into our modern times and the necessary treatment to be the peak- and night time hug fest, it's always supposed to be. Add a run out tool by DJ Oyster and a gentle DJ-friendly edit by Gerd Janson of the original to the billboard. And always remember: changing your spell can save you.


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Tracklist
Side A
A1. Jomanda – Make My Body Rock
A2. Mae-1 – Sweet Feelin’
B1. Billy “Jack” Williams presents Utterance – Grant Me Utterance *
B2. Precious – Definition of a Track
B3. Man-Machine – Elektro-Genetik
C1. Jay Williams – Sweat (Sweat the Club Mix)
C2. Kerri Chandler – Kerri KAOZ Beat (Acetate Instrumental)
D1. Romanthony – Falling From Grace (Tony Humphries Demo Mix)*
D2. Ed The Red feat. Passion in Fashion – 1-900 (Instrumental)
E1. The Brotherhood – Love Will Make It Right (Club Mix)
E2. A Slice of Life – You Make Me Feel So (ASOL Mix)
F1. The It – Donnie (Hardy Mix by Ron Hardy)
F2. Cisco Ferreia – Cisco’s Groove

(*Previously unreleased)

Info:
Telling a tale of house music’s early days or roots without mentioning Tony Humphries as a club DJ, remixer and radio disc jockey would make it an incomplete, forged and most of all a bit of a yawn.
Born in Brooklyn in 1957, Humphries’ musical journey is synonymous with New York City’s dance music history and the evolution from uptempo soul music to house: from being a dancer at David Mancuso’s infamous Loft parties to becoming a mobile DJ and getting the call from Shep Pettibone to become his right hand at
the then new Kiss FM radio station, followed by countless remix offers and a legendary residency at Newark’s Club Zanzibar. Next to that one, is was especially his work as a radio disc jockey for said station during most of the 1980s until 1994 that gave him majestic clout. Breaking new records week in, week out,
putting New Jersey acts like Adeva and Jomanda or countless up-and-coming producers from there on the musical map, while simultaneously playing the hottest imports from Europe, trax from Chicago, dance classics and all things straight from New York’s music factory that never seemed to stop.

Going to his vast and almost complete archive of radio shows from way back when he graced those airwaves, we at Running Back Records have picked original recordings that symbolize his importance as an industry giant and ambassador of this style of music.
„But one thing I would like to point out is that, as a DJ, the music I play is not my music. I want to make it perfectly clear that it is music that is released, and it’s everyone’s music. I do not take any other credit than being the middle person exposing this music.“
(Tony Humphries in: What Kind of House Party Is This?, Jonathan Fleming, 1996)



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Tracklist:
A1. Silicone Emotion
A2. Metropole
A3. Metropole (Beat Tool)
B1. Vector
B2. Riscio
B3. Riscio (Beat Tool)

Release Info:
Roaaaar time again! Delphi is one half of Tiger & Woods and back with a well-rounded solo effort. Far from unkempt or uninspired, his six efforts are sitting pleasantly between proto-house, Italo fun, new wave instrumentals and future dance. Silicone emotions meet vocodered vector graphics, handy rhythm trax that would have been hot on the mix shows of WBMX or WBLS are taking turns with neon colored leather hymns and test drive scores. All on one piece of wax. Love the past and join the future!


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