Skip to content
Published in deep house ·

Session Victim

We Want To Thank All Our Friends

An early track by the German duo Session Victim, first pressed on Wolf Music's Paw to the Floor EP in 2010: seven minutes of disco-flecked deep house whose title reads like a thank-you note to the dance floor.

By korczis 2 min read
Share on LinkedIn Share on X Share on Facebook

Review

Genre and Mood

Session Victim made We Want To Thank All Our Friends at the meeting point of deep house and disco, the two styles its first release was filed under. The mood is groovy in the most literal sense, a track built to keep bodies moving, and nostalgic in its materials, which come from the duo’s love of old records.

Song Summary

The title reads like a thank-you note. Session Victim are known for building tracks through intuitive sampling sessions, mixing samples with live instruments and organic grooves, and for a taste for dusty, forgotten vinyl. At seven minutes, this one is made for DJs and long nights rather than for radio.

Musical Breakdown

Intro

At seven minutes, the track has room to establish its groove before it develops.

Main Section

The body of the track rides its groove, the disco feel sitting on a steady house pulse. Listen for how its textures change.

Outro

At this length the ending leaves room to be mixed out, the shape of a record made for DJs.

Concepts in Focus

sampling is how Session Victim work. Their label describes intuitive sampling sessions in which fragments of records meet live instruments, with influences from late-1990s trip hop, jazz, soul and dusty vinyl. The method aims at texture rather than quotation: the grain and warmth that can make a new house record sound older than it is.

Deep house rests on a house groove, a kick on every beat and a pulse steady enough to hold a dance floor for seven minutes. Disco is house music’s ancestor, and a disco-flecked groove like this one wears that family resemblance openly. Compare the longer, glowing disco-funk groove of The Supermen Lovers – Moments.

Artistic Context

Session Victim are the German duo Hauke Freer and Matthias Reiling, the track’s credited composers. We Want To Thank All Our Friends first appeared in 2010 on Paw to the Floor, a four-track EP by the British label Wolf Music Recordings (catalogue number WOLFEP006), alongside Dead Rose Music Company, Francis Inferno Orchestra and Greymatter. The duo’s own single release followed on 1 September 2010. Their underground hit Good Intentions came in 2011 and their debut album, The Haunted House of House, in 2012; textura called it club-friendly mood music. Later albums followed on Delusions of Grandeur and, with Needledrop, on Night Time Stories.

Impact and Reception

The track belongs to the early chapter of a duo who went on to run their own vinyl label, Retreat, and to release four albums. It has kept circulating: in 2019, nine years after release, the YouTube channel Délicieuse Musique put it up for a new audience. It is here for its warmth. Put it on with friends.

Learn from this track

Introductory

What you will learn

  • Explain how producers build a house track from samples of older records and what that gives its sound.
  • Recognise the house groove under a disco-flecked track and say what keeps it moving for seven minutes.
  • Describe how a small label's various-artists EP can launch the early work of a duo.

Listening guide

  1. the groove The steady house pulse the track rests on, with the disco feel that Discogs files it under.
  2. the sampled textures Session Victim build tracks in sampling sessions from old records; listen for sounds that feel lifted from vinyl rather than programmed from scratch.
  3. the length Seven minutes, a DJ's length: notice how the track keeps its groove going rather than building to one big moment.

Concepts in this track

sampling

63 tracks

Taking a fragment of an existing recording and reusing it in a new one, as a loop, a chop or a texture. Sampling is central to hip-hop and dance music and raises questions of credit and copyright.

house groove

45 tracks

The rhythmic signature of house music: a four-on-the-floor kick, off-beat hi-hats and claps on two and four, at roughly 118 to 128 beats per minute.

Listen next, and why

Questions for discussion

  1. The title sounds like a thank-you note. What kind of music would you write to thank your friends, and does this sound like it?
  2. Session Victim say they love dusty, forgotten vinyl. Why might a sample from an old record feel warmer than a new sound?
  3. This track first appeared on a four-track EP shared with three other acts. What does a young producer gain from a release like that?

References

  1. Discogs. Various - Paw To The Floor EP (2010). Database
  2. MusicBrainz. Paw to the Floor EP (2010). Database
  3. Session Victim - Topic. We Want To Thank All Our Friends (2010). Video
  4. Délicieuse Musique. Session Victim - We Want To Thank All Our Friends (2019). Video
  5. Night Time Stories. Session Victim. Label
  6. textura. Session Victim: The Haunted House of House (2012). Review

More like this

Weighted overlap of genres, feelings and moods.

Neighbourhood

This track, the tracks most like it and theirs. Drag, zoom, hover; a dot opens the track.

Show as table