Disco Recommendations July 2012

Review: The excellent Lumberjacks In Hell imprint has served up some fine edits in its short lifespan to date, most notably from Chicago's Mutant Beat Dancer Traxx and the label's latest release turns to two other Windy City residents renowned for their collections and skills. Rahaan needs little introduction for the disco loving community with essential drops on Stillove4music, Disco Deviance and more, whilst Mr Sounds runs the excellent Bring The Heat website. This twelve is all about the A Side "Rainin Bleeding Boy" which puts a well loved UK EBM couple through the dub laden beatdown grinder - though DJs will get plenty of mileage out of both tracks on the B Side with "Flip Side" some supremely chopped up disco funk and "War I Declare" a stomping and heavily filtered bomb.

Review: After debuting with an album's worth of experimental, ambient electronic explorations from the hugely talented NYC based Jason Letkiewicz under his Alan Hurst moniker, the Emotional Response label maintains such high standards with their second release. The focus shifts to Timothy J Fairplay, a UK producer whose growing discography is proving to be impressive too. Ears should still be ringing to his World Unknown released homage to Ancient Egypt's predilection for psychedelic drugs and its little surprise he's been hand picked for the debut release on Sir Weatherall's new vinyl initiative Bird Scarer. The four tracks that make up Somebody, Somewhere retain that dubby mid tempo poise that permeated Fairplay's output to date, though he seems to revel in the freedom to experiment Emotional Response encourages, focusing more on developing expansive patterns of synths on tracks like "Aim for The Yellow Sector" and the title track. Special mention too for "I Do Not Believe" which comes on in a Deep Medi doing digidub style!

Review: Since first appearing last summer the label has retained its air of self imposed anonymity, while keeping the spotters busy with a supremely rewarding approach to digging up and re-editing "lost classics from the raw, decadent and formative birth of club music" in a manner befitting of modern dancefloors. People who class themselves as knowledgeable on the sounds that pumped out from the mixing desk of Ron Hardy at the height of his popularity probably won't have much trouble placing the source material for the four tracks here, but the genius of the EROS series is the way they've been edited which betrays a mastery and understanding of the music a legion of soundcloud dwelling hopefuls could only dream of. As the series' final release, it's hard not to think of the often stated platitude that all good things must come to an end.

Review: Killer South African disco inclusion from the International Feel label backed with a remix from Todd 'will his golden patch ever end ?' Terje! The story behind the label's latest deviation from people's expectations goes that Bepu N'Gali's glorious afro disco posse cut "I Travel To You" was passed on during a vinyl shopping expedition in Buenos Aires by a fellow British digger who'd been handed a tape from N'Gali himself on a previous pitstop in Botswana. As with all International Feel releases the music matches the story that precedes it with N'Gali and some 12 musicians combining to deliver the finest example of South African musicianship since the Shangaan Electro comp. Terje brings his inimitable dubbed out disco magic to proceedings on the flip and there's an accompanying twelve due with further dub versions due in the near future too!

Review: ** Psychemagik classic repress alert ** Ah yes, "For Your Love", the 1978 Euro Disco classic from Chilly hasn't that been re/edited by at least 78% of Soundcloud's disco edit community? Correct - it's actually second only to the gazillion marketing tools presented as a remix that are helping to power forward the career of Lana Del Rey. Psychemagik are yet to remix Lana Del Lips so we can forgive them for adding to the slew of edits of Chilly's Yardbirds cover version already released. As it stands the Psychemagik version of "For Your Love" is a commendable revision which beefs up the low end and extends everything beyond the ten minute mark. Much better is the sub blessed take on Joyce's "Aldeia De Ogum" which should come with a Punta Del Esta Approved stamp.

Review: REPRESS ALERT! Spearheaded by Stuart Leath, Emotional Rescue is a label committed to unearthing forgotten gems and giving them the exposure they richly deserve, with all releases officially licensed by the artist and remastered in full. This 12" sees two classic tracks by the world music collective Suns of Arqa take pride of place. Incorporating elements of raga and dub, "Brujo Magic" is a much more straightforward dancefloor number than its description would suggest, with its rolling bassline and vocoder effects fusing irresistibly with its psyche-rock styles. On the B-Side, "Ananta Snake Dance" combines traditional Indian percussion and harmonium with conventional drumming to create something completely unique. A strong start to what will no doubt be an indispensable label.

Review: The second of three twelve inches samplers preceding the release of The Revenge of Soft Rocks remix album arrives, with the stylistically variable Cos Mes and Lexx employed by ESP Institute to re-contextualise the work of the venerable Soft Rocks collective. Japanese duo Cos Mes are generally quite underrated - this might be in part due to their somewhat patchy output which is either mind-blowingly good or simply a bit too esoteric. Their remix of "Little Lights" belongs in the former category, shifting away from the dubwise nature of Soft Rocks' original towards a faster rumble through mystically charged, melodic forest techno. Complementing this is a delightfully skipping dub disco remix of the Kathy Diamond featuring "Wickerman" from Swiss crate digger supreme Lexx, which teases out all new levels of sublime from the original's understated usage of steel drums - Jamie XX take note!

Review: The fourth drop on the fledgling Outernational ensures standards are maintained with James Johnston and Ben La Desh providing a track on each side. Glaswegian producer Johnston is in fine form currently, having established the No Matter What label he runs with Alex Agore in the collective hearts of the deep house cognoscenti, and "That Was Now" is a sublime example of embellishing thick set house music with the spirit and soul of classic disco. Hints of glistening strings and a well plucked bass guitar sit deep in the mix as the packed groove builds effortlessly towards a quite lovely drop and build back into a final movement where the subtle disco elements become more prominent. Not to be outdone, Dutch juvenile delinquent Ben La Desh counters with "Drug Carrier", a quite intoxicating burner that's got several distinct rhythmic movements, with the point where some wide filtering introduces a heavy vibing Baltic disco mid section.

Review: In an interesting meeting of minds, the burgeoning The Backwoods moniker from DJ Kent sees two relatively fresh talents getting put on remix detail with two very different results. The Stallions comes from the wider remit of Rvng Intl. and the like, and drop a smacked-out version of "Cloud Nine" that pumps away on a solid kick pattern but floats up in a cloud of arpeggios like the earliest strains of trance. On the flip it's left to Japanese duo Cos/Mes to reach for a more lilting, pastoral version of "Awakening" that bubbles with organic percussion and a psychedelic hop to the rhythm.

Review: The Pacific Wizard Foundation launches a new series entitled Re Illumination Series: which will evidently see some of the Los Angeles crew's favourite artists rework Pacific Horizons material. Last year's Pacific Horizons twelve Beaches Of The Black Sea was amongst our favourite disco releases of 2011 and it's the two tracks on that which get reworked here. Cosmo teams up with Yam Who to deliver a trademark Cosmodelica revision of "Beaches Of The Black Sea" that somehow increases the languid Balearic feel of the original - fans of International Feel output should gravitate towards this one. This is complemented by an excellent remix of "Stealing The Fire From Heaven" by fellow LA residents Split Secs aka Alexandre Mouracade & Tk Disko, who you might recall from a rather fine Jolly Jams EP last year. Split Secs work on expanding the sprawling dubby industrial explosion of the original into a full blown track and succeed with aplomb. More of this please Pacific Wizard Foundation.