illywhacker - Smokin' Aces

Before we begin!!!

The Smokin' Aces playlist is now available to follow and stream on Spotify, it'll be updated weekly with all the tunes featuring in these blog posts.

Listen here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4oV9djxq6DviiZQgroTClE?si=xHHI31N7RXSux1_pEfcTnQ

I didn't find time to post last week, as I was pretty busy with preparing the latest False Promises episode. Worry not, Smokin' Aces returns this week with an absolute corker!

For those of you who were old enough to remember the late 90s and early noughties, you may be familiar with the smash hit that was 'Kernkraft 400' by Zombie Nation. This track was all over the radio stations when it came to light, it would regularly appear on BBC Radio 1 when my parents would drop my sisters and me off at school; that's how I first discovered the track if I remember correctly, at the young age of 10 years old!

Hitting number two on the UK Singles Chart and number one on the UK Dance Chart, as well as performing well on other charts around the world, this track launched German producer, Zombie Nation (Florian Senfter), into the limelight all around the world. However, the version which I prefer, and which I would say was the more successful of all of the versions that were released is the 'DJ Gius Mix' by Italian producer/DJ, Cristiano Giusberti, more famously known as Technoboy. For that reason, I am featuring the DJ Gius Mix in this post. Regardless, the melody was the same in all versions, infectiously catchy and energetic. It's quite hard to put this into a genre, but I would opt to put it into the Trance music camp due to its reliance on that trance-like synth hook.

The track was inspired by, and a remix of the melody taken from the song 'Star Dust', found on the 1984 Commodore 64 computer game 'Lazy Jones'. Star Dust was written by David Whittaker, it is rumoured that the melody written by David was also inspired by the 1980s track 'It Happened Then' by Electronic Ensemble. Are you still with me? Either way, if you search both of these tracks, you'll definitely hear the influence and similarity in the more recent Kernkraft 400. Initially, Zombie Nation didn't have permission to use David's melody, so had to fork out a sum of money to acquire copyright permissions, according to my research!

If I remember correctly, the decision was made that the DJ Gius Mix would become the main feature of the release, and also the version that would be given out to the radio stations to play, due to its popularity. I saw a documentary about the song on YouTube and I'm pretty certain that's what happened, I could be wrong. It makes sense, though, because the DJ Gius version is the one I remember most vividly, not the actual original version by Zombie Nation.

Kernkraft 400 was really one of the very first dance music tracks that I became hooked on. It was one of the records that led me down the path of electronic music production. In hindsight, it was a glaring omission from episode 006 of my False Promises DJ mixes. Episode 006 featured 12 of my favourite Trance music records, on the flip side, Kernkraft 400 has now had a mention in these blog posts, so that counts for something! Maybe it'll make it into my next Trance mix, planned for episode 012 of False Promises, we'll see.

Anyway, enough rambling, check out the link/video below to (re)discover the awesomeness that is Kernkraft 400!

If you enjoyed this track, make sure to check out more of Zombie Nation's and DJ Gius' music!

You can find Kernkraft 400 in the Smokin' Aces Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4oV9djxq6DviiZQgroTClE?si=xHHI31N7RXSux1_pEfcTnQ

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/48apI4bpnSo

Zombie Nation - Kernkraft 400 (DJ Gius Mix/Radio Edit)