The Freemasons are a Dance/House/Electronica production team from England. The act consists of DJ/Producer/composer/remixers Russell Small (who is also one half of the House production duo Phats & Small) and James Wiltshire (who also works with Phats & Small but under the alias Jimmy Gomez).
The duo is well known for using samples and loops from classic club/dance and Disco songs and blending it in with the new sounds of today's contemporary dance genres. The name is taken from the Brighton pub Freemasons which they frequent. The duo also record and do remixes under the similar sounding Freemaison name, which is also the name of their newly-formed record label that was founded in 2005. They have also produced tracks under the names of Alibi, Walken, and BN3 (which is part of their hometown of Brighton's postal code).
They were also the remixers on Faith Evans 2005 #1 Hot Dance Music/Club Play and #4 Hot Dance Airplay hit "Mesmerized".
The act's follow-up, "Watchin'" was released in the United States in 2006 under the Freemasons Featuring Amanda Wilson name with Wilson as their lead vocalist for the act. "Watchin'" peaked at #1 on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play and within the Top 20 of the Hot Dance Airplay chart. The third original single from the Freemasons, "Rain Down Love" reached the Top 20 of the Hot Dance Airplay chart. It also hit the Top 10 on some Rhythmic format radio stations. Their fourth single (released digitally), "Nothing But a Heartache" featuring vocals from Sylvia Mason-James was released in June 2007. Although it got great play by DJ's, it failed to chart as well as its predecessors.
The Freemasons have also been praised for their remix of Beyoncé Knowles' original song, Déjà Vu in 2006. It is reported that Beyoncé was so impressed with the remix that she requested that they also remix all singles released from her album, B'Day. The Freemasons followed this up with further remixes of Ring the Alarm, Beautiful Liar (duet with Shakira), and Green Light, transforming her traditional R&B tracks into funky house tunes, attracting a new base of house music-fans. Freemasons' remixes of Beyoncé's songs are now the among the most eagerly anticipated in clubland. They also co-produced "The One" on Kylie Minogue's album, "X" with Richard Stannard.
Freemasons radically altered the Kelly Rowland track 'Work' which has seen chart success in the UK.
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