SESSION VICTIM Vinyl & CDs

Review: The always-cultured Session Victim have got increasingly refined in their work over the last decade or so. Always about much more than just throwaway grooves, they embellish their sounds once more here with the new album Listen to Your Heart on the regular home label Delusions of Grandeur. It arrives across six sides of opaque violet vinyl and is hugely limited. The house here is dusty and laden with great soul samples, lit up with gorgeous jazzy melodies and steeped in musicality. The opener is a real early standout while cuts like 'Up To Rise' are full of warm, joyous synth magic.

Review: German pair Session Victim have long been invigorating the deep hose scene with their rare musical skill. They have managed to imbue their sounds with elements of funk, jazz and soul while keeping their grooves fresh and stylish. Their fifth studio album Low Key, Low Pressure is "an anathema to today's fast paced, industry driven musical landscape" in that it is sophisticate and unhurried, not full of obvious singles but instead a coherent body of work that really excels as a long player - not something that can be said of much of today's disposable, Spotify-ready dance music. Across the ten tunes there's a lovely cover, a fine collab with occasional partner Carsten "Erobique" Meyer and playful sounds a plenty.

Review: Shockingly, five years have now passed since perennial deep house/disco/Balearic fusionists Session Victim released their fine debut album, The Haunted House of House. To celebrate, the album has been given the reissue treatment on vibrant orange vinyl. It remains a terrific set all told - a contemporary classic that stretches 11 slabs of deep house gorgeousness across three slabs of wax. Throughout, the pair easily sidestep the genre's many pitfalls, flitting between comfy, melodic goodness ('Push Comes To Shove', 'Zoinks'), jazz-funk/deep house fusion ('AlpineGlow'), slick disco-house ('The Haunted House'), groovy slo-mo electronica ('Blison'), dewy-eyed Balearica ('The Light Scent of Decay') and Clyde-esque broken hip-hop ('Fine').

Review: While this appearance from Session Victim on Rhythm Section International is unexpected, to say the least, it does make some sense - after all, their warming, musically expansive deep house sound frequently offers nods to jazz, soul and disco as well as Balearic beats. All of those influences and inspirations are evident across the five tracks that make up Basic Instinct, with the German pair bouncing between subtly funk-flecked, piano-rich loveliness (the bluesy and atmospheric 'Trying to Make it Home', locked-in loop-house haziness (the sampled South Asian percussion and warming riffs of 'In & Out', ultra-deep dancefloor melancholia ('Orbits of Dust'), loose-limbed deep jazz breaks (EP highlight '5AM Continental') and sunrise-ready breakbeat lusciousness ('SFC (Hommage Mix)').

Review: Big manoeuvres as usual from the Wolf Music crew on their 18th release! Session Victim must rank amongst the most high profile inductees into the Wolf Music series so it makes perfect sense for the German duo to open proceedings with the classic slab of European deepness that is "Random Blues". Worthy of a Raw Cuts release, Session Victim weave dusty drums, sweet vocal intonations and the warmest of basslines together with the resultant laid back track likely to be much played in Croatia over the summer evenings. Complementing this, "Carry It" from Wolf Music regular Medlar adopts a similar hazy house tone whilst the flip holds a pair of newcomers in Squarehead and Ishmael - the latter's cut is particularly special!