X-Connection – Watch Them Dogs / Funky Drive

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The preacher sampled on "Watch Them Dogs" is Reverend B. W. Smith; can't find him on Discogs but the sermon is on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hlHPYbTPZI

Funky Drive is indeed one of the best tracks that ever appeared on X-Trax. There is so much energy in it without any overload of sounds. Well done!

absolutely massive

Watch out, this release is completely misprinted as it is the same release as on X-Trax. There are no different mixes of Watch Them Dogs on the cd but Watch Them Dogs, Funky Drive and Rookie.

It always surprised me how can "Watch them dogs" be the title track when it's absolutely overshadowed by "Funky drive". Not that it's bad, it kind of follows the similar formula of the B1 tune on X-002; meaning, there is some preacher's voice layed over slower, steady percussion, and a synth stab is rising from the hind for a good five minutes. Then, for a while, the vocals are retracted, and with the percussion crescendo hand in hand comes the by now heavily accentuated synth, and the tune climaxes. The pastor's sermon is re-introdcued, and the track slowly breaks down to its initial state, before it ends. It's a good number, but nothing spectacular, and actually, judging this one on its own is way harder than thinking of it as an enhancing tool - the voice, the piercing, morphing synth - it all can come in handy in those moments when you want to create some chaos on the dance floor. If you liked tracks like "The switch" by Misjah & Tim, "The truth of self evidence" by Saunderson, the bootleg version of Sims' "Manipulated" (or whatever version it was) and Green Velvet's "Preacherman", then you'll probably dig this as well.
Flip it to "Funky Drive", and you have one of the finest ever pieces recorded on X-Trax. I don't even know how often do I actually play the A side when this acid trance ride is here. A nine minute build up, with amazing percussion, sounding like a heavily loaded freight train was speeding on the railroad track. An acidic melody kicks off right from the start and it builds and builds and builds up until around the five minute index point when this superbly spiralling trance melody on a heavy acid trip comes in and takes this whole track on a two minute ecstatic and joyful ride through some amazing acid drenched cosmos and tranced out states of... whatever!
Absolutely amazing, the title really does the track justice, a funky ride, no doubt about it. Not as furious as "Access", for example, but very effective and uplifting as well! Do check.