Maurice Fulton

Before thousands of indie rockers ordained him as an acceptable face of dance music, Maurice Fulton cut his teeth as a hip-hop DJ, danced somewhere in the background of a scene in John Waters' Hairspray, programmed drums and played keyboards on aboveground house hits by Crystal Waters and Ultra Naté, and started a stockpile of production pseudonyms -- including Boof, Eddie & the Eggs, Sticky People, and Syclops -- that likely numbers north of 20. His best-known work will forever remain within Crystal Waters' "Gypsy Woman," but the early 2000s saw him achieve a different kind of notoriety as the non-shrieking half of Mu, a collaborative affair with his wife, Mutsumi Kanamori. Mu's Afro Finger and Gel (2003) and Out of Breach (Manchester's Revenge) (2005) are two gleaming (or glaring) examples of left-field house at its least predicable and most terroristic. Fulton also developed into the most reliably creative and off-the-wall remixer. A complete compilation of his commissioned output would span several discs. A typical Fulton remix is atypical in that it bends and mutates synthesized elements of house, funk, post-disco, and post-punk without sounding the least bit stilted or forced. In Fulton's hands, polite and pleasant house tracks were given some edge and sometimes a whole lot of bite, and relatively weird tracks got weirder. Nicole Willis' "Heed the Sign" and Annie's "Heartbeat," for example, retained their strong melodies but received almost entirely new rhythmic constructions provided by Fulton's own instrumentation. On the latter, as well as on I:Cube's "Vacuum Jackers" and Château Flight's "Superflight," Fulton also deployed thick and chewy funk bass so distinctive (in the 21st century, at least) that it might as well be termed "the Maurice bass." He was one of...