De Gama

Review: Following fine scalpel-focused outings from LTJ and Les Inferno, many of many aliases Stefano De Gama returns to Samosa with a trio of subtly tooled-up disco edits. A-side "Son of Slave" sees him join together bits of soulful disco-era classics "Slide" and "Son of Slide" to form a tasty new whole. While heavily compressed and noticeably chunkier than either of the original tracks, De Gama's version is loose enough to please those who think edits should merely be DJ-friendly re-arrangements. Turn to the flipside for the lolloping, low-slung Afro-funk goodness of "1972" and the throbbing peak-time disco celebration of filter-sporting closer "Star Buk". This too boasts booming drums and bass, but also enough musical looseness to avoid the usual disco-house pitfalls.

Review: Italian label Samosa continues to deliver re-edits with "Funk Purpose". Volume three is every bit as strong as its predecessors, with a quartet of experienced re-editors offering up fresh reworks. Get Down Edits set the tone with "Comin' At Ya", a riotously beefy, tooled-up house revision of an urgent funk-soul gem, before Monsieur Van Pratt gleefully dances into disco-funk territory via the spacey synths, groovy bass guitar, crunchy Clavinet licks and fluttering flute solos of "UFO". Over on side B Souldynamic provides some rubbery disco bounce via "Better", while De Gama goes all samba-house with the cowbell-propelled South American style Hammond funk of "Groove On".