Off the back of Honey Dijon remixing his club classic, ‘Tania’ and his label Bambossa celebrating two decades of releasing quality house music, Harry Romero talks us through five choice key tracks throughout the years.
1 Harry Romero – What Happened?
“When I think about a classic Bambossa track ‘What Happened?’ is definitely in my top 5.
It features my wife’s vocals which was inspired from a conversation I had with her driving back from a club. I looked over and said “Honey what happened? Is everything cool?” and she said “Yeah everythings cool”. I got home that night and made the track in about 2 or 3 hours and made the hook from that conversation and the next day I had my wife record the female vocal part”.
2. Harry Romero – La Luz
“Another track I think about is a ‘La Luz’, which means ‘the light’ in Spanish, released under my alias HCCR, which stands for Harry “Choo Choo” Romero. I’ve always been into techno and acid house so this was one of those tracks where I wanted to flex those muscles. I had just gotten a Roland 303 and I was playing around with it, and came up with 3 or 4 different versions of the same acid line and created the track. I sent it to Josh Wink and he was blown away . I don’t think the track got as much attention as it should have – so definitely go look it up!”.
3. Harry Romero – Son Of Mongo
“‘Son of Mongo’ also comes to mind as a Bambossa classic track. I used the same sample that Kenny and Louis (Kenlou) used for their track ‘The Bounce’. The original sample comes from Gil Scott-Heron’s ‘The Bottle’, so I took the sample and replayed it the way the original did. I’ve always loved that groove and I’ve always wanted to lay a sax over the original bounce. I had this Disco-y drum sample which worked so I threw that in and called John Scarpulla, who is the only sax player I’ve ever worked with.
‘Son of Mongo’ is one of those tracks that a lot of people didn’t get at first but a few DJs like DJ Sneak and Honey Dijon have consistently supported it”.
4. Harry ”Choo Choo” Romero – Night @ The Black
“It would be hard to do a top 5 of Bambossa and not include ‘Night @ The Black’. I think this track is tied with ‘Tania’ for the most successful record that I’ve ever put out! The history behind this record is so long, if you guys only knew how hard it was to make.
The technology wasn’t as advanced back then so I had to buy another sampler to alleviate some of the workload from the other samplers that had stopped syncing but ended up buying a brand new computer and as soon as I pressed play everything was locked tight.
People think that it’s an electric guitar playing but it’s actually a piccolo bass with some distortion being played by the genius, Al McDowell. If you don’t know who Al McDowell is he is one of the most talented musicians I have ever worked with”.
5. Harry ‘Choo Choo’ Romero – Warped
“Finally, ‘Warped’ is a track from early on in the Bambossa Catalogue. It’s essentially a cover of an Eddy Grant song called ‘Time Warp’ which was apparently a big record in The Paradise Garage but I only knew it from digging through music.
I decided to literally replay everything the way it was played in the original, note for note. I really got into how the original was made, and in the process of remaking it I learnt so much about the keyboard and where it should sit in the mix. Of course, I exaggerated some of the arrangement to create that drama and that tension that we DJs love to play…. I’m super happy with how it turned out”.
Follow Harry Romero: Facebook | Instagram | Soundcloud
