Love Spy

Description

The first chapter of our 40th Anniversary celebration brought “Love Spy” back to vinyl and invited a new generation of producers to look at Mike Mareen’s 1986 classic from their own perspective. Part 2 continues the story, but there is no reason to tell the same tale twice. This time we reach once again into the original 1986 package and bring back the “Salutation Mix”, pairing it with two completely new remixes created by two remarkably colourful personalities from today’s European electronic underground. And colourful is definitely the right word. The first comes from Tyrell Corporation. Behind that name stands Martijn Hoogendijk, better known to most electronic music heads as Alden Tyrell. For almost three decades, Tyrell has been one of the most distinctive characters of the Dutch electronic scene. His musical world has moved freely between Italo Disco, electro, techno, acid, house and EBM, always with an obvious fascination for machines, analogue synthesis and the raw energy of early electronic dance music. His relationship with Italo is certainly not a recent fashion. One of his earliest Alden Tyrell releases, “Love Explosion”, appeared on I-F’s Viewlexx label back in 1999, at a time when only a relatively small group of Dutch fanatics were already rediscovering and reinterpreting the forgotten European electronic sounds of the previous decade. Since the early 2000s he has also been deeply connected with Rotterdam’s legendary Clone Records, not only as a producer and collaborator, but as one of its most important mastering engineers. His fingerprints can be found on an enormous number of Clone releases, including the label’s celebrated work restoring and reissuing the Drexciya catalogue. His studio tells much the same story. Synthesizers, drum machines and hardware collected over decades surround a producer whose fascination with electronic instruments started when he bought his first synthesizer in the 1980s. For “Love Spy” he appears as Tyrell Corporation and delivers exactly what one might hope for from someone with that history: a remix that understands the original language of Italo and Hi-NRG, but speaks it with the experience of nearly three decades spent inside Dutch electro, techno and machine music. The second new interpretation comes from France. Bubs, real name Maxime Bunel, followed a very different route. His earlier productions grew from house, disco and French-touch influences, but over the last few years his attention has increasingly shifted toward Italo Disco, Hi-NRG and the rapidly expanding contemporary italowave scene. In 2025 he made that commitment official by launching Filter Phaser, his own label dedicated specifically to the new generation of Italo Disco and Hi-NRG. And his “Love Spy” remix shows exactly why his name has been appearing more and more often in this scene. This one is pure dancefloor ammunition. Bubs keeps the elements that make “Love Spy” instantly recognisable, but raises the temperature considerably. The energy is harder, the dynamics are bigger and the production has been pushed towards the sound of contemporary italowave without sacrificing the melody, drama and personality of Mike Mareen’s original. Old DNA, new blood. The result is not an attempt to drag “Love Spy” away from 1986. Quite the opposite. Both remixers clearly understand why the record still works forty years later. They simply approach that DNA from two different generations and two different corners of European electronic music, but with the same respect and adoration to Mike Mareen’s legacy. The 40th Anniversary Edition Part 2 comes pressed on classic black vinyl and a special ruby-red vinyl edition. It is also the final Vintage Pleasure Boutique release of 2026. And somehow it feels like the right record to close the year.