Deep House Recommendations April 2011

Review: ** REPRESS ** YouANDme drops a thumping warehouse refix of Moodymann's anthem, "It's 2 Late 4 U & Me", which first appeared on the Ol' Dirty Vinyl EP via Mahogani last year. The original featured prominently among many a dancefloor cognoscenti's Best Of 2010 list, and it's thus a wise call by production duo of Martin Muller and Daniel Stroter to eschew any rapid transformations. They instead focus on some judicious filtering and a beefed up groove - simple yet highly effective stuff. Limited edition business pressed up on smoky clear vinyl.

Review: Surprisingly, this is Detroit house veteran Rick Wilhite's debut album. When you consider his length of service and gargantuan reputation in deep house circles his first releases slipped out in the early 1990s, after all it's unsurprising that the release of Analog Aquarium is considered something of an event. And rightly so; you'll struggle to find quite as good a collection of high grade Motor City house. Shuffling between loose, lazy Beatdown excursions (check the brilliant Theo Parrish/Osunlade collaboration "Blame It On The Boogie") and upbeat, drum-heavy deep house floor fillers ("Deep Horizon") via jazzy analogue dubscapes ("Muzic Gonna Save The World"), it's a predictably formidable set.

Review: Sound Signature present two of the classier moments from Mr Parrish's Sketches album in their rightful form - either side of a nice loud twelve inch. Lead track "Feel Free To Be Who You Need To Be" is Theo's most eminently danceable excursion for quite some time; arising from a 23rd century Funkadelic intro into a subaqueous Detroit electro meets funk swing that builds expertly. It's weirdly reminiscent of a retooled version of "Booty (La La)" from Bugz In The Attic with the afro excesses twisted inside out to lean heavily on the robot vocoder flex. On the flip long time collaborator Dumminie Deporres features on the don't even bother pronouncing "360@1:29ON696" which stretches a twelve minute jazz techno odyssey elegantly across the vinyl - vintage stuff from the Sound Signature boss.

Review: ** BIG REPRESS ** After two auspicious releases on the Swedish label Aniara Recordings, production duo Genius Of Time step up to Clone's Royal Oak series, previously graced by the likes of Space Dimension Controller, Reggie Dokes and Gerd. Taking this esteemed company into account, we don't take it lightly when we say this record is as good as anything we've heard in the Royal Oak series, with A Side offering "Drifting Back" a jazzy house delight with softly pumping chords making for a jam that wouldn't seem out of place in the KDJ back cat. It's the two flipside offerings, however, that contain the real heat. "Houston We Have A Problem" combines calming synths, vocal moans and rolling percussion to breathtaking effect, while "Juxtapose" could almost be David Kennedy in house mode such is the tough, raw drum programming, but Genius Of Time add some softly soaring strings, thus imbuing the track with a nice classicist bent. An excellent release that comes with a free download code to keep all you mp3 bandits happy.

Review: Lovers of the golden era of Chicago House and attractive vinyl packages will be adding Rush Hour to their Christmas card list very soon thanks to this luxurious 5 x vinyl box set version of previously unreleased Virgo Four material. Our friends from Amsterdam have truly excelled in all respects here, lovingly presenting twice as many tracks as the CD version of Resurrection. Rescued from dusty shoeboxes full of DAT tapes, the 30 tracks showcased here could be considered long-lost house classics. Certainly, the mix of early deep house, slinky vocal numbers, next-level acid experimentation and raw, midtempo dreamscapes is the equal of anything that emerged from the Windy city in that productive period from 1986-1990. If you're a confirmed house head, you need this in your life.

Review: Any release from Terre Thaemlitz, be it under his DJ Sprinkles nom de plume or any other of his many aliases, is always worth more than a cursory glace. They usually fall somewhere between 'very good' and 'utterly brilliant' - his two remixes of June on German imprint These Days very much veers towards the latter. The way his tracks makes a stately progression from raw, dusty drum programming with subtle acid undertones towards a gorgeous piano melody via disturbed vocal screams has an impact far beyond the remit of this review. You simply have to listen to it. His second, 'empty dancefloor' remix of "Lost Area" last just a matter of seconds, a brief, whispy sketch that is over before it really begins, and will have you pining for more. The two original tracks from June, meanwhile, are still very worthy of your attention, although pale slightly in comparison to the majesty of Sprinkles efforts. "Cube Runner" is characterised by soaring synths and a nice analogue chug, while the more cerebral "Cytheria" bodes well for the release of a full length June album in 2011.