It was back in April that I first caught a whisper of a "new dance record" from club veteran Abigail. I was sitting across a table from her in a quaint Italian restaurant in Mobile, Alabama, where she was presiding over local Gay Pride festivities, when she casually dropped the idea into conversation over a slice of olive pizza. The reaction was immediate, even her longtime friend and guitarist Tim who was traveling with her took notice with a surprised look of "Really?!?" In a very understated sort of way she mused, "Oh yeah, Hex has agreed to remix it for me and everything, it's going to be an anthem…" and then meretriciously continued to focus her attention on the slice of pizza in her hand as if what she had just said had no gravity at all. Abigail has that way about her, to tickle your interest in that very "unintentional" but calculated sort of way that takes you where she wants you to follow. Needless to say, the course of our dinner conversation—and expectations—were irrevocably altered that night.
Abigail was very seductive, revealing little about the project that at the time was still in its infancy. She told us she had been writing and recording some vocals with Josh Harris, whose remixing credentials were just beginning to become well known through work with New York's WKTU, and gave little more insight on what to expect. It would be almost one year later that "Lay Down" would arrive on my desktop for inspection, followed by a phone call of girlish delight asking "Well, whaddya think?" What do I think? What do I THINK? Well first question is, where the heck did you find a closet large enough to HIDE something this big for so long without a leak? The track is amazing and will no doubt be finding its way onto every circuit compilation known to man within the next few months as it is launched nationwide in September.
"Lay Down" is actually a collaboration with Abigail lending a featured vocal to a "mysterious" English-based group calling themselves Ten Monkeys, co-produced stateside by Josh Harris. The track was written by Josh and Abigail, recorded in New England last summer, and then shipped off to the UK for post-production. The "Original Club mix" that resulted stands out as the most addictive of the mixes offered on the release. A simple melancholic keyboard line filters up from the start and introduces Abigail's inimitable voice to a joyous "hands-in-the-air-tears-in-your-eyes" production reminiscent of last summer's smoldering "Alright" by Red Carpet or "Morning Always Comes Too Soon" by Brad Carter. Standing right in the middle of the musical frenzy is that VOICE… powerful, meaningful, endearing and lyrically significant.
Hex Hector, a long-time friend and ally of Abigail, takes the track into a more percussive territory that strips the melancholy away and adds a more aggressive undertone more conducive to a big room setting (think to his classic remix of Whitney Houston's "Heartbreak Hotel" for reference here) that will likely be the mix of choice for most DJs. The mix WORKS, and it doesn't make the mistake of dismissing vocals as secondary to a bed of over-production. Hex, like Abigail, has been riding a wave of new-found independence in his work, and like his crowning work on "Ride It" by Geri Halliwell some years ago, his production here is volatile fuel for the anthem that this record will inevitably become.
