DJS: MOST CHARTED - DEEP HOUSE - MOST CHARTED IN 2012

Review: Mahogani regular Andres comes correct once again with the debut drop on his new label La Vida, with three tracks that flow with that inimitable Motor City soul. Much like previous Andres output, the triplet on New For U draw obvious lines of influence from Dilla and Dixon Jnr, though it's all sprinkled with Dez's own unique touch and style, be it the infectious snap of percussion or deft and subtle implementation of samples. The title track is a gloriously ripe combination of both those elements as thick drums intertwine with the sumptuous waves of strings and warm chiming chords, everything worked into a rhythmic template that weaves with intoxicating energy. "Drama Around The Corner" makes for one of Andres' trademark neck snapping beatdown moments and the level of percussive detail that's apparent when you concentrate is stunning and is the charming almost brief interlude to the B Side magic. Commencing with a short, looped up jazzual intro, "Jazz Dance" swiftly settles into a stripped down procession of bumping drums, low reaching double bass and swift keys - all of which are intermittently complemented by some expertly looped vocal samples. Occupying most of the B Side, it feels like the track could reach into infinity without losing any charm. Rightly the 12" of the year for us and many others.

Review: Andres' return with the second La Vida 12" reaffirmed our belief that there's no-one out there doing it quite like the former Slum Village DJ. Second Time Around has the same insouciant, dusty charm that characterised New For U, the first drop on the Detroit deity's La Vida imprint, with the title track instantly entering the canon of house classics that change the shape of a party as soon as the needle hits the groove. The shimmying beats and cooing vocal snippets on "Skate This Way" work alongside captivating string samples. Flip over for some eloquent beatdown ("Second Time Around") and shuffling deep house exotica ("Hart Plaza").

Review: Bicep's ascent from a blog collective with obvious taste and passion for all forms of dance music into a fully fledged brand continues apace with the foundation of Feel My Bicep, a new label named in honour of their blog which promises to showcase their own growing production nous. Vision Of Love will probably go down as one of this year's most ubiquitous releases, given the advance clamour for its release and it's not hard to see why. Yes the three tracks here contain an obvious nod to the 90s New Jersey sound Bicep clearly adore, but there's a clear craft to their execution and the title track is massively infectious.

Review: The late, great Detroit mainstay Mike Huckaby had one of the most distinctive sounds in deep house. His always smoky tracks did the basics exceptionally well so never relied on gimmicks to win the attention of DJs and dancers. Never was that more evident than on his standout genre-study, 'Baseline 88-89' which served up a pair of smoky basement tracks with iconic basslines. We have found a few old copies of this cult EP on his own Synth label and it kicks off with 'Baseline 88' with its languid synth bass drunkenly falling about beneath buoyant and dubby kicks. 'Baseline 89' has a darker bassline and loopy drums with a little more edge and bite. These are two perennial favourites amongst underground heads.

Review: Rush Hour did us plenty of favours this year but by far our most cherished was the reissue of James Mason's timeless, proto-house excursions on the infamous "Nightgruv" EP. There's really not much to be said about these peerless productions, the original mix is a stunning voyage through glimmering synths backed by a chugging beat groove, but the unreleased longer edit is the one - voyaging through those gorgeous drums and piano keys like there's no tomorrow! "I Want Your Love" is another masterpiece - slo-mo hip-hop beats mixed in with those killer funk bass lines and the infamous vocals taking you to another dimension.

Review: After more or less owning 2011 with a surprise album, a collaboration with urban crooner Colonel Abrams, an ahead-of-the-game reissue of Marc Kinchen and the all-conquering "Here's Your Trance Now Dance", FXHE don Omar S kicks off a new year with Wayne County Hills Cops Pt 2 (where, we ask, was Part 1?), a hook-up with the mysterious OB IGNITT. The eponymous A-Side is characterised by the kind of glistening synths last seen on "Here's Your Trance...", with a rugged analogue bass line giving the track with the requisite bump. A tired cliche it may be, but this could easily soundtrack an 80s cop movie: clearly Omar has this in mind given the 12"'s title and the fact the record's centre label features a doctored image of Eddie Murphy from Beverly Hills Cop! On the flip, Omar S provides his own remix, drowning the synths in dubby textures and showering them with shuffling hats for a more heads-down take. Another killer 12" - business as usual at FXHE, then.

Review: Motor-City legend Norm Talley has had one hell of a comeback since his hiatus at the end of the 90s. Since 2009, he's reignited his peerless talent behind the production desk and London-based Landed Records have come through with what is probably his biggest EP yet. "Ion" kicks things off with style and panache, merging beautiful chords together with Talley's inimitable percussion style - dicing hi-hats all round! The title track, "Travlin" is a sublime jazzed-out piece for the small hours whilst "Analog Dreams" is just pure hardware delight - those gritty drums delivering some serious action alongside the meandering pads and subdued vocals. Get to know!

Review: At first glance, the pairing of Forest Hill resident Andrew Ashong and Sound Signature boss Theo Parrish would seem strange. But the duo have worked together previously with the Ghanaian born vocalist (and supposed owner of a vinyl collection that would make most record shops look like a car boot sale) lending his soulful tones to Parrish's excellent nine minute plus translation of the Hot Chip and Spiritualised affiliated About Group. Whereas that collaboration was more about Ashong's voice being just one element of a production that was undoubtedly Parrish, the three tracks present on the Flowers EP look to showcase what a talent the Londoner is. Those trademark dust filled stacatto rhythms are present in the opening title track, but they never swamp Ashong's killer vocal delivery, while "Take It Slow" is bonafide D funk of the highest order. After the brutal, divisive nature of Theo's kung fu experimentalism on the Any Other Styles EP, these three tracks show him in a wholly new light and hopefully Parrish and Ashong will be making much more music together.

Review: Recloose on Delusions of Grandeur? Yes please! "Don't Get Me Wrong" is classic Matt Cicioine, packed full of his usual musicality and dense, melodic production. It sounds like an unlikely fusion of distant, long-forgotten disco and spine-tingling deep house, with more atmospheric vocal samples and live instruments than you can shake a smelly stick at. It's heady and intoxicating, coming on like a classic house production made somewhere between Detroit and New York. The driving "Shimmy" continues the murky, retro-futurist trend and is just as engaging. As if that wasn't enough, there's also a lovingly fluid, decidedly Balearic rework of the title track from Melbournite Tornado Wallace that's quite possibly the best thing he's done to date. Splendid!

Review: ** REPRESS ** Officially titled Wild Oats Proudly Presents Da Sampla West Side Sessions, you can tell straight away how much work Kyle Hall's label has put into remastering and reissuing this 1997 heat from Anthony Shake Shakir. Screen printed cover art, bonus material on an accompanying 7" and gloriously lo-fi photocopied insert - all these elements just add an additional sheen of "must-haveness" to some archival Motor City brilliance from Shake. All four rollercoaster rides through Detroit rhythms from the 12" Shakir released under his Da Sampla alias on the now defunct M3 imprint are present and sound just as vital now, not least the dizzying kaleidoscopic sensory assault of "Track 4". Two additional cuts of material produced by both Shakir and Hall occupy the red hand stamped 7", veering between the relentless carnival judder of "GJ" and the sparser alien sounds of "Frictional Beat #6" - both of which are complemented by locked grooves. Given the hugely popular nature of Wild Oats output to date, this won't stick around for long.

Review: The latest transmission from Kolour Ltd is that bit more special, collating some choice out-of-print cuts that French producer Patchworks released on Parisian hub Q Tapes for this black splattered clear plate. Just one of numerous aliases adopted by Bruno Hovart, the inherent musicality of these Patchwork productions date almost a decade and really do show up a lot of what passes for contemporary "deep house". A long version of "Million Toes" - originally released in 2005 - opens proceedings, finely balancing Hovart's undoubted skill for jazz arrangements with a sumptuous deep house groove that seems perfectly suited to set opening needs (the piano flourishes are particularly luxurious). "Cornbread" from the aforementioned EP is also included here, while Kolour look to Hovart's undervalued work as Porks Watch, with the thickly hypnotic disco-flecked title track from his 2005 Minotaur EP the highlight of the B Side.

Review: Italian producer Nicholas had a killer year, with a healthy string of releases on 4Lux and Quintessentials, not to mention his excellent podcast for RA, but his EP on Hometaping Is Killing Music was probably his best concoction of house beats to date. The title track "Love Message" is an impeccable 90s reminiscent deep house belter, taking some Pepe Bradock style drums and tearing them apart thanks to some gorgeous pianos and prophetic vocals. "From The Roots" was another massive track, where bumping bass lines meet suave piano keys to create a serious house explosion! The bonus beat version extended those thumping kicks and injected extra dubbiness for the true house heads. Big 12"!

Review: After the warm reception of his Baseline 88-89 release, Huckaby continues to develop his own S Y N T H label with another EP of solid, dubby house music. "Sandcastle" is positively minimal in its construction, with a clean groove decorated only with occasional spurts of delayed atmospherics and a subby bassline, begging to be slid under something else in a similar restrained groove. "Flashbacks From The M1" is equally functional, although the moody chord that comes scrabbling through the core of the track lightens the mood somewhat. Either way, these are tracks designed to slowly bleed into their counterparts, albeit without the dryness that comes with brazenly marketed 'DJ tools'.

Review: Rush Hour have released some killer reissues in their time, and this mini-album from Ben Cenac of Newcleus fame, released under the Dream 2 Science moniker in 1990 is no exception, sounding like a conscious response to the warm, soul-flecked offerings of contemporaries Bobby Konders, the Burrell Brothers and Lamont Booker. Amazingly, Dream 2 Science still sounds remarkably fresh, 22 years on. The production, in particular, is terrific. While many house records of the period sound clumsy and dated, there's a timeless quality to the intricately programmed drum machine rhythms, the drifting chords, warm analogue basslines and cute vibraphone melodies.

Review: It's entirely typical of Pepe Bradock that the French producer's first original material in several years should arrive with little prior warning. Since arriving on the house circuit in the late 90s, the Parisian has cultivated an enigmatic presence thanks to a paucity of releases and a disinterest in the self promotional circus that has consumed his peers. This of course hasn't stopped him getting collared for countless excellent remixes over the years, thus adding to the cult of Pepe. A four part Imbroglios series commences in supreme style here, with Bradock's unique production style shining through from the opening bars of "Katoucha?" which accrues all new levels of mind bending texture as it progresses. Few other producers would think to actually sample a cat purring or indeed succeed like Bradock does on the intoxicatingly off kilter "Inconsequent Pussy", and the remainder of the EP is an equally rewarding fusion of eccentric sounds and quirky rhythmic swing.

Review: If Ridley Scott was a smart man (and those who've seen Prometheus would contest this) he'd commission Steve Moore to compose the soundtrack to his mooted Bladerunner sequel or at the very least license the tracks that Panther Moderns, this long overdue second release for the LIES label brandishes. The eponymous William Gibson referencing track opens proceedings, channelling Vangelis's famous OST work unravelling an ominous bed of droning textures that seem to drag you to the cusp of infinity before a lollopingly slow techno beat surfaces caked thick with bass and joined by a brutally bleak pattern of synths. In contrast, "Beyond Tyken's Rift" hints at lighter times, a subtle yet definite euphoria building throughout this ebullient exercise in modern cosmiche. And then we come to "Ancient Shorelines I" a track that really allows Moore to indulge his penchant for epic soundscapes; heavy and haunting arpeggios intertwine with a deathly kick, with the eventual appearance of intricate percussion the prelude to the track unfurling into glorious incandescence.

Review: My Love Is Underground celebrates their landmark 10th release by going back to where it all began. Those of you with good memories - in dance music terms - will recall fondly the hubbub that surrounded the arrival of The Resurrxion EP in 2010, which announced to the world that Jeremy 'Underground Paris' and Sammy Brawther's label was one to keep an eagle eye on. Here that killer four track 12" is reissued with four slices of House Music Done Properly. "Gotta Get Over 2010" was an instant classic: all yearning vocals, dubby bass, sumptuous keys and judiciously used organ stabs, while "Jer & Iz" featured a clipped, teasing horn that immediately brought to mind the work of Marc Kinchen. "Move Ya Body" was just about our pick of the bunch here at Juno HQ, while "The Nathaniel X-Tract" rounded off the EP with perhaps the most uplifting jam of the lot.