Nitro Deluxe - Let's Get Brutal (This Brutal House) (12")
- 12 INCH VINYL
- Jan 2
- 2 min read
Updated: May 6
Nitro Deluxe is the moniker of respected American musician Manny Scretching Jr.Scretching was born in Philadelphia in 1960 and performed with various funk and jazz groups including The Sun Ra Arkestra.
In the 1980s he signed with New York dance label Cutting Records and begin recording as Nitro Deluxe.
Most of Cutting Records' output was electro and freestyle giving Scretching's house track a unique feel as it used the same equipment and production techniques as Cutting's regular label output, and had input from label owner Aldo Marin.
The track sounded ahead of its time on its release in the US as Let's Get Brutal in 1986, and in the UK via Cooltempo Records as This Brutal House in 1987.
The various releases across the two territories featured a handful of different mixes and edits. The mix featured here is the 7'10" mix labeled simply as 'Let's Get Brutal' on the UK 12".
Over the years there has been much debate over what is said in the track's familiar sample with opinions divided between "brutal with the melody" and "brutal with the millimeter".
There's a third theory that the sample is in fact "brutal with the melon meter", a reference to a friend of Scretching's who had mastered the algorithm of a fruit machine that included a "melon meter" and was able to win regularly.Whatever the reality Let's Get Brutal / This Brutal house is without question one of the defining early house tracks.
Its bass stab was also sampled a couple of years later by Kevin Saunderson who used it to create Inner City's signature sound, the sound that appeared at the beginning of their biggest hits 'Big Fun' and 'Good Life'.
"It's a sample of a chord from Let's Get Brutal by Nitro Deluxe and a mixture of some instruments we blended together to create that unique sound. When you can't find quiet the sound you want you find your own way to get there," said Saunderson.
Not long after it's success Scretching became blind and suffered from kidney failure but continued to write and record music before he passed away in 2012 at the age of 52.
Year: 1987 Label: Cooltempo Cat no: COOLR 142
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