MARK GRUSANE Vinyl & CDs

Review: Mark Grusane presence on Disctechno brings with it a compilation of five unique house tracks from Chicago and Detroit-based producers, as you will probably have guessed from the title. The A-side features DJ Slush's synth-driven 'Memory Blank' and Deon Jamar's bass-heavy 'AYYYO' which offer different but both killer sounds. The B-side opens with Jordan Zawideh's reverb-drenched 'Axolotls' followed by Grusane's intense, atonal 'The Recoil' and concludes with Thomas Xu's groovy 'School Street.' All of these are the sort of off-kilter sounds you would expect of these revered and enduring electric hotbeds. Raw, stripped-down and authentic, this is the contemporary Midwest underground.

Review: Chicagoan crate digger, DJ and producer Mark Grusane has long been regarded as one of the best re-editors in the business, with a long list of labels queuing up to put out his tried and tested reworks. Here be unveils a new project, The Tape Edits, in which he rearranges and revitalised cuts the old fashioned way - IE via the use of reel-to-reel tape, a scalpel and some sticky tape. There's plenty to admire across the six tracks stretched across two slabs of wax, from the high-tempo jazz-fusion-goes-disco hedonism of 'I Can't Come Down' and the killer-grooves-and-analogue synths flex of 'The Fever', to the low-slung disco-funk heaviness of 'Stomp The Floor' and the spacey disco-funk brilliance of closing cut 'Giving Nothing'.

Review: Over the years, Chicago house DJ Mark Grusane has prospected for treasure with such success that he has more or less marked *himself* out as one such treasure. Such high praise, of which there is much online, offers a kind of eternal gilt return. This second edition in Grusane's Tape Edits series stocks a select six of his much-envied "disco tape to tape edits", made in Chicago between 1988-1999. Emphasising the fullest, most maximal quixotisms in disco, all the tracks here brim with seething compressed energy, with the limitation of tape transfer serving to squash and squeeze far more out of the disco genre than the simple, ostensibly humble mylar medium might suggest. Most arresting is 'Mapouka Dance (Non Stop)', an animalistic fire dance and lusty attention grabber, serving whipping snares and whooping crowd jeers; sexy spectatorship by the dance.

Review: DJ and producer Mark Grusane is a hails from Chicago and is co-owner of Mr. Peabody Records, which specialises in rare and obscure vinyl from around the world. While many prior releases have appeared due to that affiliation, 'Book Me For Your Birthday Party' hears the cream of his music released for German label Bless You. Four raw, sexual, jacking, jukey house music cuts appear, showing off the kind of production antics Grusane gets up to while enjoying his off hours at the record store. While they're at least ten years old, we're sure Grusane still has access to the same inner clown that not only allows him to be such a great party guest, but also lets him make such heaters.