The Fog “Been a Long Time”

The birth of our underground brand Factory 93 not only brought on an adrenaline rush reminiscent of the renegade warehouse era of raving—on which Insomniac was founded—but it also had us thinking back to all the people, places and parties that made this whole operation possible. And with that came a burning desire to crack open our collection and dust off the classic records we couldn’t live without. Through our From the Crate series, we’ll be breaking out both seminal and obscure cuts alike, imparting some knowledge in the process.

We all know the history of how the templates for house and techno were set in ‘80s-era Chicago and Detroit—but those templates took years to fully inure, and it was inevitable that producers outside of those music capitals would put their own idiosyncratic stamps on the malleable genres. Often, their music bore the insular stamps of the environment from which they emanated—the soulful urban grit of house from northeast New Jersey, for instance, or the eerie, dystopian bleep emanating from post-industrial Sheffield, England, or the vaguely psychedelic formulations of Bay Area–based crews like the Hardkiss Brothers and the Wicked Crew. And then there was Miami, home of Ralph Falcón and Oscar Gaetan, together known as Murk.

When it came to Miami’s regionally grown house, Falcón and Gaetan essentially were the sound of the city—and it was one of the most unique takes on house music yet. Beginning in the early ‘90s and working under a dizzying array of aliases (Funky Green Dogs, Liberty City, Interceptor and Intruder, just to name a few), the two developed a style that was sticky and sultry, throbbing and heaving, and more than a little otherworldly. Though usually not in an obvious salsa-sample kind of way, it was also Latin to the core, with a loose, hot-blooded feel that stood in opposition to the icier, more regimented styles of northern climes. The two also mined a similar vein when they worked alone, with the former’s pseudonyms including Pimp Daddies, Afro-Cube and Cockfight, and the latter working under names like Discipline and Outta Limits, among others. Within those solo discographies, there’s a Falcón track that arguably rises above them all: “Been a Long Time,” credited to the Fog.

Released on Miami Soul, run by Falcón and Frank Gonzalez, “Been a Long Time” isn’t breaking new lyrical ground, at least on paper—with lines like “Is it true/that you found another baby/is it true/oh tell me is it true,” it’s essentially another entry in the infinite list of yearning-for-a-lost-love tunes. But voiced by vocalist Dorothy Mann in a controlled, accusatory wail, it’s more of a “fuck you” track than a tears-in-my-pillow number; it’s almost a warning that revenge is on the way, a vibe that’s enhanced by the song’s voodoo-funk strut. It’s a simply constructed song—stripped-down percussion loops, a flanged hi-hat, dark dubby bass, and Mann gonna-cut-you-up vocals sitting in the middle of it all—and it’s fierce to the core.

The original 12-inch boasts a pair of instrumental mixes, both emphasizing the track’s Latin flavor—but the vocal mix, full of fury, is hard to top in terms of sheer emotional force. Over the years, the tracks had a number of worthy remixes—the House of Dreams mix by Italian maestro Mr. Marvin and the disco-loopy Discocaine Klub Vox version stand out—but really, none are a match for Falcón’s singular original.

Twelve years after the song’s release, a Michael Paoletta–penned Billboard article stated that a DJ could “play a song like the Fog’s ‘Been a Long Time’… in a club today, and watch the energy in the room shift dramatically—in a positive way.” That was something of an understatement: The tune, dropped at the right moment, when the dancers and DJ were aligned and the sweat was flowing, could elicit whoops, hollers, and something close to mass hysteria. And 12 years after that, absolutely nothing has changed—“Been a Long Time” remains one of the defining moments of the Murk oeuvre, and one of house music’s all-time best.