RUI DA SILVA ft CASSANDRA – "Touch Me"

I quite like this. It’s not great or groundbreaking but it bubbles away pleasantly – although I’m not entirely sure whether I’m listening to the original or a remix – and some of the rhythms and bass tones remind me of Burial, who may have been referencing this kind of stuff for all I know.

This sounded *incredible* in the dark, messy, cramped surroundings of…

…my teenage room, late Autumn/Winter 2004, when most of my early noughties dance was discovered. Another one I’d listen to and dream of a future life where I’d actually, gasp, be *in a real club* or house party like the one featured in the video and be able to dance to this sort of thing, only for that era to arrive and never actually hear this at any place I’ve ever been to. It’s also another one I’ve heard in two slightly different versions – it sounds like I’ve heard both the Spandau-sampling mix and the non Spandau-sampling mix at various points, different radio stations playing different versions at different times. They’re extremely similar but subtly different enough to spot some minor changes, not just the sample itself but certain elements of the track seem re-arranged.

I don’t mind listening to this one, compared to certain other dance #1s of the noughties this seems one of the least remembered and played today, and that helps it still seem fresh in my mind (and evocative of my 2004 self) in a way that more overplayed ones aren’t.

In my mind, I group it with Dreamer. More spectral obviously, but there’s the intense vocal, the anxiety of the chords, the melody’s lack of an obvious resolution, and the pan-European lyric* that means everything/nothing: “You touch my mind in special places.”

*Just looked up Cassandra, aka Cass Fox, and discovered she’s North London Irish, so not as pan-European as I thought.

It’d be easy to write this off as a lucky early-January #1, but three weeks in the top 2 suggest this was a bona-fide crossover. And indeed I remember it well. I actually like it more now than I did then; the music has a certain woozy, end-of-the-party vibe that Cassandra’s smoky vocal generally complements – although I’d perhaps agree that it could if anything benefit from being even more low key.

It was a busy release week too. Steps leapt from 72-2 with ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’, which was accidentally released early in some stores. In the end the difference in sales wouldn’t have pushed them ahead of Rui Da Silva in any event, but it’s a bit of a shame as it’s a far superior track to the run-of-the-mill Stomp, and probably one of their best ballads. They wouldn’t last the year, but there were still three more top 5 hits to come before their dramatic Boxing Day split.

At #3 Fragma, finally following up ‘Toca’s Miracle’ with a fully-credited Maria Rubia replacing Coco Starr on lead vocals. While it’s little remembered now, it had a stronger chart life than many follow-ups to accidental dance hits, with a month in the top 5 and sales in excess of 200,000 copies. I remember this because Maria Rubia got very emotional when presented with a Silver Disc for it on CD:UK. She did mildly better than Coco out of her association with Fragma, making a brief top 40 appearence in her own right later that year with ‘Say It’, which I remember sounding like the background music to the Rainbow Road level on MarioKart 64 and was partially sung in French for no obvious reason.

Outside the top ten, Mauro Picotto entered at #13 with Komodo (Save a Soul) which sampled ‘Sweet Lullaby’ by Deep Forest – a #10 hit in 1994.

Red Hot Chilli Peppers scored their fifth and final top 40 from their successful ‘Californication’ album with ‘Road Trippin’ – the only one of the five I don’t remember at all despite charting higher than the better-known Otherside (#33) and Around The World (#35). That album was a staple of my sixth form common room though so I’m sure I’d recognise it if I refreshed myself – update, indeed I do.

Finally at #31 was Lene Marlin with ‘Where I’m Heading’, her third and final top 40 hit and just as lovely and wistful as her previous two. Like a Norwegian Tanita Tikaram, she sold a lot of albums off the back of quite modest singles sales, but made no impact with subsequent releases. Her big hit ‘Sittin’ Down Here’ is often shoved into the same bracket of bland radio-whimsy as The Corrs and Sixpence None The Richer, which I think does a huge disservice to how deceptively dark and sinister it is.

Re 9: True, it’s not Dreamer, but not much is.

The other odd thing about the radio edit – apart from cramming in every bit of vocal, incidental or otherwise – is that the backing track is busier. The 8 min 30 version, which I’ve always taken to be the official extended version (no Spandau) is certainly more low key, which suits it.

Re 11: I guess it still sounds like “the future” compared to Where Do You Go To My Lovely.

I’m struggling to find anything of interest to say about this record; in fact it may be a contender for the least interesting number one single ever. I suppose I could note that it proved to be the first one hit wonder since Mr Oizo two years earlier (technically Baz Luhrmann split the two but he wasn’t an artist in the conventional success) but not the last in 2001. Since #10 mentions Steps’ runner up am I right in thinking that it set the record for the biggest climb within the top 75 and that record endures to this day?

Ability with poi and a lovely lilting accent was enough to make me fall in love with someone for two uneventful weeks at university, so it’s hopefully not ENTIRELY a mark of my own patheticness that the fire poi looks like the most fun bit of the video!

The 3:25 version on M. da Silva’s official VEVO has the sample intact, I think. Pleasant enough while it lasted but even to someone coming back to everything contextless and in over a decade’s hindsight it seems like there was so much better around at the time. Three weeks though. [4]

@Crag, 15. Whoops, you are correct. I knew I was pushing it but thought that first versions of ‘Echoes’ were done back in 1969 for soundtracks (for Antonioni and others), but that now appears to have been wishful thinking on my part.

I love this. It’s so seductive. A strong 8, possibly a 9.

#14 I wouldn’t be surprised if this record has been broken in the download era, especially since streaming’s inclusion.

I really liked this at the time. It seemed more moody than other dance hits and early January suited it much better than a summer release. I think 2001 turned out to be one of the best years ever for chart dance although it didn’t show up much at No.1.

Alas only a 5 for me and I do love my overcast yearn-dance…like a lot of trance-tinged 00/01 hits this just felt a bit too flat and pallid, despite Cassandra’s lustful lunges.

Similar stuff from the time I preferred: From December 2000, Love Connection’s ‘The Bomb’ (cornier than RdS but more euphoric with it) and Way Out West’s ‘The Fall’ (sampling Coldcut’s ‘Autumn Leaves’ to fine effect) but that’s probably getting too Trancey – as would be the remixes of Rollo’s latest project Dusted at #31 in Jan 2001 with ‘Always Remember To Respect And Honour Your Mother’ – worth seeing its Where The Wild Things Are homage video too though. I see remixes of Salt Tank’s Eugina’ and OT Quartet’s ‘Hold That Sucker Down’ had charted outside the top 40 a few weeks beforehand too but I doubt the originals were bettered here.

In Feb Photek nearly got his second top 40 hit with the exceedingly tasteful ‘Mine To Give’ ft. Robert Owens, monochrome video an’ all – all very Disclosurey as we could now say but probably shouldn’t…going deeper and longer than that, Luomo’s very deep and long ‘Vocalcity’ LP is wonderful.

Other faves from late 2000: Braxe & Falke’s ‘Most Wanted’ EP, Silicone Soul’s ‘Right On’, Jazzy M’s ‘Jazzin’ The Way You Know’, Tom Middleton’s remix of Goldfrapp’s ‘Utopia’, the Mooloodjee remix of Etienne De Crecy’s ‘Am I Wrong?’, Evil Bob Sinclar’s ‘I Feel For You’, Sasha & Emerson’s ‘Scorchio’, Bangalter & Falcon’s ‘Together’ and, er, whatever mix of ‘Swollen’ by Bent bangs best. I’d say all have a connection with ‘Touch Me’ from a variety of directions but admittedly none with enough to render it entirely obsolete.

Apart from the rather Hallmark intro, surprised how much I like this one considering how slushy, unimaginative and drawn-out I thought this genre had become by now. And this is very adult, tasteful mock-Renaissance architecture compared to the winning brutalism of Sandstorm and Zombie Nation. But there’s enough Balearic/Iberian/whatever menace and passion in this one, however contrived, for a generous 7. You can divide that by 7 if it was summer 2001 #3 hit Ian Van Dahl – Castles in the Sky. Hell fire, dancey trancey stancey things of that ilk are so take-me-to-church cynical they make me physically sick.

Footnote: Rui da Silva is the first artist on Popular since Jim Diamond whose physical form I had absolutely no idea of. Until I Googled what he looked like today. Christ on a bike! He looks like a Portuguese Stuart Maconie! Open letter to the world: if such a thing doesn’t exist, please don’t ever invent it.

“There’s more to like about Da Silva’s ominous backing, with the “Chant No.1” sample a ghost in the mix, though its presence wouldn’t suddenly have turned “Touch Me” into a classic.”

The ‘Chant no.1’ sample is in the original mix on my (full release, UK) vinyl. It’s in this radio edit as well.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rui+da+silva+touch+me+radio+edit

According to this , http://www.residentadvisor.net/news.aspx?id=2854 Rui Da Silva was fined for unauthorised use of the sample, but where was it removed? Am I missing something?

As a Portuguese (and living in Portugal at the time; still am), I can tell you this: even with a previous bonafide club smash in his hands (along with DJ Vibe in 1994, with “So Get Up”, using the Underground Sound of Lisbon moniker), no one apart from the club cognoscenti knew Rui from Adam around these shores in 2001. With all the news filtering from the UK and as “Touch Me” reached the summit, he was suddenly turned almost into a national hero, with mainstream media in a rush to interview him and the song reaching saturation airplay at radio.
With Rui drifting back underground with time, he duly lost that mainstream attention in Portugal too. But for a good three years, believe me: Rui was being treated like royalty whenever he got the chance to go back and visit his own motherland.

This is the first number one of my lifetime that I have no memory of. None whatsoever.

And it will take a lot more listens before I remember one thing about this flavourless, plain Ryvita of a number one.

Cass with Rui da Silva is being re-released on October 30th. Cassandra Fox left Island Records, and decided not to move forward with the re-release of Touch Me. She went on the Faithless Tour instead.

An absolutely iconic vocal house record that really doesn’t “need to go anywhere” by virtue of where it does and doesn’t go. There is a phrase, less is more..

I love the moodiness here. Great record in my view. 8/10.