Rituel, the house alliance formed by Christophe Monier (The Micronauts) and Thomas Regnault (Dew Town Mayor), is about to release their second EP, appropriately titled “Deux”. It features two brand new songs, “Club Zanzibar” and “Nirvana Dance”, each in your choice of club, radio and instrumental mixes. Building on the success of their acclaimed first EP (“Un”) and universally praised DJ sets and podcasts (mixing underground disco, R&B and garage classics with the latest deep house, post-dubstep and bass music tracks), Rituel takes their unique musical blend on a journey through Africa and the Indian subcontinent. “Club Zanzibar” is as much a reference to the Tanzanian archipelago as it is to the eponymous nightclub, open during the 80s and located in Newark, New Jersey, where Tony Humphries, François Kervokian or Tee Scott were known to deejay. Much like the Paradise Garage in Manhattan, Club Zanzibar is where the garage scene was invented and defined, but in an even freer and wilder form. Using some of the African music samples unearthed by the club’s DJs to pep up their sets, the Rituel track celebrates this freedom with a tribal and sensual groove, an anthemic chorus and a theremin finale that is viciously acidic. From Zanzibar we shoot straight across the ocean to the Indian Peninsula. The vocals of “Nirvana Dance” are a verse in Sanskrit from the Bhagavad Gita (the central part of the epic Mahabharata, which was traditionally sung). Krishna affirms his support of spirituality, triumphing over materialism, in a battle fought within each of us. This is the ideal state that dancers search to attain at a great party. This track is also an experiment with another, more prosaic challenge: how to keep the booty-shaking swing and merrily change the tempo, alternating between a typical four-on-the-floor house section and a quiet storm inspired dubstep part. It had never been done before!
Rituel – Nirvana Dance – official music video
Rituel – Nirvana Dance Lyrics: