YU SU Vinyl & CDs

Review: Needs' commendable charity drive continues to bring forth the goods, both in terms of good causes and world class club music. Rallying round in support of World Mental Health Day 2020, Shanti Celeste kicks the record off in style with the rapid fire, deep-diving workout 'Fantasma'. OCB keeps the pressure up with the psychotropic techno of 'RS3', while Michelle works up some delightfully freaky synths on playful jacker 'Aesthetic'. Bobby's 'Free Your Mind' is a 90s-tinged, full fat techno production indebted to Detroit, Peder Mannerfelt keeps things stripped and raw on 'Our Levels' and Yu Su weaves a beautiful tapestry of interweaving rhythms on 'Brittney'. Adam Pits' trippy techno sounds resplendent on 'Wind Tunnel' and DJ Sports completes the set with the inventive, dembow slanted funk of 'Needs Dub'.

Review: Italian imprint Polifonic used their debut release, a multi-artist EP called Itria, to set their stall out as a label dedicated to joining the dots between Afro-cosmic, dream house and other wide-eyed retro-futurist sounds. There's a similarly delicious, loved up feel about much of this sequel. Regular studio buddies Lipelis and Andy Butler (Hercules and Love Affair) express their love of Balearic house on the deliciously dreamy, Flamenco guitar-and-TB-303 sporting dawn loveliness of 'Generations of Sunsets', before Eternal Love doff a cap to the greats of Italo-house on 'Kusai Riviera'. Over on the flip, Yu Su provides some predictably trippy, tribal-tinged, semi-ambient excellence (the hard-to-pigeonhole but lovely 'Oil', while Benedek layers up the melodies, chords and loved-up sonic textures on 'Desperado'.

Review: Yu Su's eclectic, organic sound is one that has been perfected over every consecutive release, and reaches its yetmost peak with 'I Want An Earth'. As if to make a defiant cry for a habitable planet, this one contains four tracks inspired by the artist's time spent in the deserts of Ojai, California, and the coastal areas of British Columbia, presenting a deeply pad-driven, warm and modular sound to match. A dazzling work of odd-timed cosmickery and varied sonics.

Review: Vancouver Dj/producer Yu Su has previously impressed via occasional contributions to the Mood Hut-affiliated Libra Mix series. This is the DJ/producer's debut solo release and boasts two high-grade cuts on one single-sided People's Potential Unlimited 12". Opener "Infi Love" is typical of the hazy, dusty and spacey Vancouver deep house sound - all soft focus intergalactic chords, vintage drum machine percussion, cut-up female vocal samples and undulating analogue bass. The jazziness continues on "Soon (MOA Mix)", where wonderfully hazy trumpet samples and horizontal chords trickle down over a bossa-inspired beat. As you might expect, it's seriously evocative and atmospheric.