RiL029 Mark Grant -Touch Me (Dub) (Cajual)
/Mark Grant is another Chicago house enigma. Rising through the Cajual records ranks he made some seriously good house music especially in the ten years between 1995-2005, although he was never prolific. That is often a good way to be as a producer as producing fewer good records is far better than producing loads of average records. 'Touch Me' was only his second record and it is a simple but hard hitting drum and bass groove completed with some female moans and groans over the top. Mark features twice in the Pleasure Rooms mix as he was also part of the Chicago Connection. I got a white label copy of 'Touch Me' while visiting Derrick Carter in Chicago. He took me along to the infamous Monday night session at Red Dog club, which is no longer running. I heard the track and the next day when DC took me down to see Cajmere's Cajual records empire I came away with a test pressing and a good few others too. Prescription Underground was also getting run out of the same warehouse space as was Guidance. That little personal trip got me a permanent place on their vinyl promo mail outs for all the associated labels run from there including Relief and Sneak's early stuff too, so I was lucky to be one of only a few UK Djs getting the sounds of the second wave of Chicago house super early to spin back in Leeds at basics. I know Luke Soloman and Kenny Hawkes also had access to those records for their Wednesday night session at Bar Rhumba in London but there was not so many others. 'Touch Me' features on the Pleasure Rooms Mix and starts at 8 mins 11 secs in.