WISEGUYS: Ooh La La / Start The Commotion

This reissue 7-inch feels like a perfectly preserved snapshot of late-90s / early-2000s big beat culture — the moment when sample-heavy dance music was playful, stylish, and unashamedly built around groove and attitude.

Putting “Ooh La La” and “Start the Commotion” together on one single makes a lot of sense because they represent two sides of the Wiseguys formula:

crate-digger sample obsession,
breakbeat momentum,
and pop-cultural swagger.

“Ooh La La” remains the more instantly seductive track. Built around the unforgettable sample from Battaniye by Ersen, it has that dusty, loop-driven cool that defined the best downtempo-adjacent breakbeat records of the era. The bassline slinks forward while the drums stay relaxed but incredibly tight. It sounds less like a conventional dance track and more like a soundtrack to some imaginary 1970s crime film reconstructed from vinyl fragments.

“Start the Commotion,” meanwhile, is pure kinetic energy. The rhythm is harder, more direct, and clearly aimed at peak-time movement. The track became ubiquitous through film, TV, and advertising because it captures a very specific kind of hyper-confident early-2000s cool: funky, ironic, but still genuinely effective as dance music.