Review: REPRESS ALERT: Big time modern deep house dons Lazare Hoche and S.A.M. team up for this new label Perfect Pushup, which from the outset seems to be dealing in some pretty big time edit business. On the A side, they've taken on evergreen Arthur Russell delight "In The Light Of The Miracle" - hallowed ground no doubt, but the team approach with care and tease some additional minutes and a little more oomph out of this beauty of a track. It's harder to ID "The GB Track" on the flip, but it matters not one bit as the endless flow of woozy, tastefully cut up funk spills out over 12 minutes.
Review: Back in the late 1990s French twosome DJ Deep and Julien Jabre released a handful of fine - and now hard to find - EPs as "The Deep". 1997's "The Earth EP" was arguably the strongest of the lot, hence this re-mastered reissue from the on-point Mint Condition camp. Heading up the EP is "Love Your Brother", a fine fusion of swinging, tech-tinged grooves, US garage style organ stabs and effortlessly soulful vocal samples that sounds every bit as far-sighted in 2020 as it did back in the day. Over on the flip you'll find the stripped back and slightly spacey sounding "Love Your Dub" revision, as well as original flipside "Gratiot's Tiger", a slightly woozier and dreamier chunk of deep house/tech-house fusion.
Me & My Peoples Eyes (feat Lord Imran Ahmed) (7:12)
Stoneodenjoe (4:38)
Joy (feat Taj - part III) (6:22)
Black Sunday (10:48)
Review: Finding and buying original vinyl copies of Moodymann's brilliant second album, 1998's "Mahogany Brown", can be a costly business, so all praise to Peacefrog for offering up this much-needed reissue. Packed to the rafters with classic Kenny Dixon Junior material - see the woozy warmth of "Sunshine", where a children's choir rides a locked-in groove and jazzy electric piano solos, the sample-laden up-tempo bump of "MEANDNJB" and the sublime gospel house workout "Black Sunday" for starters - it's arguably the album that established the Detroit legend's trademark sound once and for all. When it comes to jazz-flecked deep house shot through with references to the history of black American music, there are few - if any - better albums.
Review: This is the first in what is said to be a new series of special Prescription reissues, remasters and retakes. It kicks off in bold fashion with label head Ron Trent's remixes of Indigo Tracks' "Rites & Rituals" which laid down an early blueprint for Afro house that has never really been bettered. It is alive with congas, hand drums and toms that bubble and boil over a deep, tribal groove. Two different remasters take the tracks in deeper, then more soulful and spiritual directions that are utterly hypnotic and enchanting. Looks like this could well become a vital series.
Isoul8 - "Just The Way I Like It" (feat Diamondancer - 12" mix) (6:44)
June Jazzin - "Unfriendly Guests" (7:02)
Review: Now this is proper house music from the Noble Square label. Crate-digging veteran Volcon aka Isoul8 has linked with Diamond Dancer and enlisted the lush guitar of Piranahead to cook up a fantastically deep and effusive track that overflows with soul and spirituality, while the gentle vocals add another layer of cool. On the flip side, June Jazzin comes just as correct with a timeless broken beat track that glows thanks to the jazzy keys and bendy chords that light it up. Loungey yet heady, it's as good as it gets, frankly, and will swell your heart in two different but equally impactful ways.
Review: The No Fuss crew hit release number four with another sharply selected range of tracks from some hot property in the deep house scene. Opening up the A side is The Journey Men - a London based crew who know how to keep things soulful but headsy for the floor. Local Options follow up with a tuff, bumping cut with a cheeky dash of dubbiness thrown in for good measure. No Fuss mainstay Saison sets off the B side in fine style with the nagging micro house shuffle of "A Good Thang", before Cpen seals the deal with the garage-speckled immersion of "Jus Music". There's high grade house music throughout this 12" - one not to be slept on!
Review: Atlanta-based Stefan Ringer may not be one of the highest profile deep house producer's around, but over the last six years he's quietly amassed a decent discography. "Feels Rite" is his first outing of 2020 and sees him appear on People Of Earth for the very first time. Opener "Be Myself" is particularly potent, with Ringer offering up a loose, languid and soulful take on MPC-made house full of distant male vocals, rich chords and sci-fi synths. "Club Bang", a trippy late night affair that sounds like a future basement-bothering classic, is another standout cut, though the warm and toasty, funk-tinged deep house jazziness of closing cut "Fired Up" is almost as inspired.
Review: Last time out Andreya Triana and The Vision (AKA KON and Ben Westbeech) took us to "Heaven" and back. For their latest single they've asked us to gape in wonder at some suitably sizeable "Mountains". In its original "Extended Mix" form (side A) the track is soulful, slick and seductive, with Triana's superb vocals rising, mountain-like, above a musical panorama rich in dreamy chords, jazz-funk bass, gospel pianos and club-ready beats that sit somewhere between deep house and disco. Danny Krivit is the man at the controls for the flipside remix. He stretches out the track impressively, making a bit more of the spacey synths, guitars and bass while re-framing the track as a soaring slab of piano house brilliance.
Review: Over the last few years, we've heard plenty of reworks of obscure, Cold War-era cuts from Eastern Europe, though few from the then Soviet Union. The shadowy CCCP Edits series, which here makes its bow, promises to set the record straight. There's plenty to set the pulse racing, from the bubbly acid bass, bustling funk breaks and hip-house breaks of "Malodym" and "Ya Zdes" (the latter with added deep house drowsiness and Balearic intent), to the spoken male vocals, high-tempo electro beats and lo-fi guitars of "Knopochki". Best of all though is closing cut "Astrid", which isn't really Russian at all, but rather an extra-percussive, bass heavy samba-house rework of an old Astrud Gilberto track. We'll forgive them though as it's really rather good.
Review: Having spent the last couple of years working on other projects, Mood Hut stalwarts Pender Street Steppers reunite for a welcome EP of loved-up goodness. They begin not with a chunk of saucer-eyed deep house, but rather the Balearic jazz-funk lusciousness of "Raining Again". The sunrise-friendly positivity continues with the ricocheting drum hits, fireside-warm bass and head-in-the-clouds synth melodies of "Mirror (Dub)", before the Canadian duo pays tribute to early Italian house on "Molto Bene". Turn to the flipside for the crunchy deep house dreaminess of "Blackboard" and the ultra-deep headiness of "No Need", in which the talented twosome makes great use of delay-laden drum machine hits and looped, dust-laden hip-hop vocal samples. All in all, this is arguably their strongest EP to date.
Review: It would be fair to say that this outing from piano-loving Sheffield sorts Adelphi Music Factory is a little bit big. And when we mean big, we mean BIG. Like, "phew, I might need a lie down after dancing to it" big. Of course, all their tunes are rushing and life affirming, but there's something particularly breathless about the blend of banged-out piano riffs, stomping gospel-house beats and big-lunged gospel vocals on "Uprising". The arrangement cleverly maximizes dancefloor impact by including all manner of builds and drops, while the flipside Dub mix only strips out a relatively limited amount of the vocal. The whole thing is a giddy blast from the past and the kind of thing we could expect people going crazy to at festivals this summer.
Vincent Floyd - "Economy Of Motion" (Vincent Inc remix) (7:38)
Review: We still don't know exactly who's behind these crucial drops on 14th Level Of Paradise, but at least we can be sure of the quality every time a new slab lands from on high. On this edition, Pawel Kobak opens up proceedings with a sweet, disco-sauteed heater with oodles of gorgeous instrumentation over a tough drum machine jack. Deep house don Callisto and DKMA get their sublime "Manga" reworked by Adam Jace, while Dennis Collado gets busy with Mateo & Matos' "Joy 2 My Life" in a dose of pure house uplift. Vincent Floyd's "Economy Of Emotion" is the final track, tastefully remixed by Vincent Inc who folds some subtle synth flourishes over the top of the crisp groove.
Review: Here's something of a surprise: an EP from perennial deep house and disco eccentric Maurice Fulton on Peggy Gou's hyped Gudu imprint. The Sheffield-based American joins forces with Gou on A-side "Jigoo", with the pair peppering a squelchy synth bassline and Chicago house style drums with smile-inducing piano riffs and swirling electronics. Fulton reverts to weirdo disco mode on B-side opener "Not Sure I Would", a hard-to-describe number that contains many of his usual aural flourishes (live-sounding drums, bonkers bass, Clavinets, spiraling synth sounds etc), before flitting between African style hand percussion and taut machine drums on fine percussion workout "One Itself".
Kemetic Just Presents Justone - "Stay My Way" (Kai Alce Ndatl Soul Instrum mix) (4:41)
Hanna - "Heist" (6:37)
Reekee - "Let It Make" (6:38)
Review: Alex Attias' Visions Inc imprint has decided to launch a new multi-artist EP series. Happily, the first "Phase" in the "Evolution" series - they've promised three more this year - delivers a suitably strong start. Patrice Scott sets a high benchmark with opener "Rain Dance", a wonderfully warm fusion of elastic deep house beats, spacey electronic motifs and tactile Rhodes chords, before Kai Alce breaks up the beats a little on his effortlessly soulful, jazz-funk influenced revision of "Stay My Way" by Kemetic Just presents Justone. Hanna's flipside opener "Heist" is suitably deep, starry, groovy and soulful, while Reekee's "Let It Make" is a musically rich affair full of jazz-funk bass, fizzing synths, far-sighted chords and bustling beats that sit somewhere between broken beat and breakbeat house.
Review: New York house don Fred P is back after serving up some sumptuous album sounds under his Black Jazz Consortium alias. This time he has both feet firmly in the club, rooted to the floor, and his head is lost in the groove. As ever these are chunky, hypnotic affairs with real bass weight and just enough detail to keep your mind occupied as you travel ever further down the rabbit hole. There's glitchiness in "For The Dome" and soul in "Construction", while "Alphabet City" is a real bumper and "Turn Up" brings the darkness. High quality stuff, as always.
Let Them Come (Greg Gauthier dance Culture remix) (5:43)
Let Them Come (Greg Gauthier dance Culture remix - instrumental) (5:43)
Let Them Come (Gokin vocal remix) (6:34)
Let Them Come (Gokin instrumental remix) (6:32)
Review: Second time around for Dan Electro's "Let Them Come", an extra-percussive chunk toe-tapping, hip-shaking gospel house brilliance that first surfaced on the producer's 2009 album "Bite The Hand That Feeds You". Sadly his superb original version isn't present, though the fresh remixes are more than up to scratch. Greg Gauthier handles Side A, serving up vocal and instrumental takes built around Church organ stabs, restless deep house drums and a killer electronic bassline. They're rather good all told, though Gokin's flipside vocal and instrumental revisions are arguably even better. Re-imagining the track as a gospel-fired slab of dreamy deep house, Gokin smothers a driving beat in hazy chords and the kind of insatiable electric piano solos usually associated with classic 1970s jazz-funk wig-outs.
Review: Space Ghost has most recently been spotted dropping excellent albums "Aquarium Nightclub" and "Endless Light" on Tartelet, but now he's made a swerve for Funkineven's Apron Records to drop this sultry collection of jams that match bittersweet keys with rubbery bass and plenty of crooked funk that calls to mind broken beat and boogie as much as house music. From the swanging funk of "Prayer For U" to the slow jam New Jack Swing of "Mystery Angel", this is an album that champions some great eras of black music very much in the vein of Apron overall, but still says its own thing. Soulful at every turn and finished with an '80s digital veneer so slick you could trip on it.
Review: During the late 1980s and 1990s, few Italian producers built up quite as strong a catalogue of dreamy, tactile and sun-kissed deep house, ambient and downtempo tracks as Don Carlos. As this fine compilation proves, the tracks he never bothered releasing at the time were equally as good. Disc one focuses on completely unreleased fare (including a quite different arrangement of his greatest hit, the sax-laden dream house anthem "Alone"), offering up the kind of sparkling, life-affirming goodness that instantly evokes imagined memories of dancing on a beach at dawn. Disc two is more focused on rare and hard-to-find alternative mixes, including fine revisions of classic cuts such as "Re-Mida", "Aqua" and "Paranoia". Simply essential!
Review: After a break of almost two years, Trindadian Deep has decided to re-activate the Native Rebel Music label he founded in 2018. Like its predecessor, "Soca Electric" boasts three tracks of intricately detailed, emotion-rich deep house full of nods towards Caribbean and African musical culture. We highly recommend the luscious and beach-warm title track, where steel pan melodies, fluid synthesizer solos and life-affirming chords stretch out above a percussion-laden, Ron Trent style deep house groove. That said, we've also got a lot of love for the similarly sun-kissed, synth bass-sporting "The Edge" and the more heavily electronic deep house lusciousness of "Future Travels". In fact, all three tracks are glorious.
Review: Fabrizio Fattore made a big debut on Gigi Testa's World Peace Music label and now follows it up in fine fashion. The Naples producer is part of the NEUHM camp/family/club and oversees the 30th release from Visions Recordings. He serves up two gems with "Ojibwa" being the first and making something of a deep space opus. It's widescreen, filled with evocative sci-fi imagery and channels plenty of early Detroit majesty. On "Namid", the pads disappear to infinity, the synths sing and the beats stay deep before closing things out in more tribal fashion with a "Lost Tribe Dub" of "Ojibwa".
Review: Malmo-based producer Sune has been on a promising run over the past few years, first popping up on Kyoku and Live Ones before migrating to Let's Play House and Better Listen. He's back on the latter with some joyous, infectious house music crafted with soul and flair. "Summa Kardemumma" is a short low slung skit to open the EP up before "Elevator Connoisseur" sends things skywards with some wistful soul sampling and an energizing, organic kind of house beat. "Tom's Foolery" is a wonderfully jazzy, feel good cut, while "Direct Number" revolves around a catchy vocal sample and a lovely Motown flavour to the sound sources. "Call It What You Want" finishes things off with a more uptempo slice of house heaven, sealing the deal on a beautifully crafted EP of positive vibrations.
Review: Last heard on Craigie Knowes, Berlin-based Fred Shepherd makes his first appearance on Church via a suitably deep, dreamy and intergalactic collection of cuts. "Dayz" sounds a little like some of Larry Heard's most far-sighted, emotive and futuristic early deep house cuts, while "Wouldn't Have It Any Other Way" is the kind of tactile, saucer-eyed breakbeat-goes-dream house number that would sound simply stunning if you listened to it while watching the sun come up. "Highland Spring" offers an icier and arguably even more picturesque take on deep house/breakbeat fusion, while opener "653 Miles" contains some of the lushest chords and most evocative piano solos we've heard for some time.
Review: Cornucopia is an elusive figure who lets his melodies and textures take centre stage. Now it is the Multinotes label who come calling for some of his magic, and boy does the artist come through. "Before Anyone Else" is a mini epic that journeys to the stars on a loose, off grid pattern of keys that never stop evolving. The succulent drums power things along in frictionless fashion while B-side "Bats & Birds" settles into an even more unhurried and elongated groove. It's a mystic world of far sighted synths and gently drifting solar winds that sooth mind, body and soul.
Review: Despite delivering two volumes in his ongoing "Disco Dubs" re-edit series on Friends & Relations, 2019 was a relatively quiet year for Alistair Gibbs AKA Nebraska. Here he begins 2020 in fine style with a cracking new outing on Heist Recordings. Title track "Y'miss Me Baby?" delivers a suitably strong start and see Gibbs wrap twinkling lead lines, rich electric piano chords, talkbox vocals and P-funk synths around a hazy jazz-funk bassline and unfussy dancefloor drums. Giovanni Damico riffs on the jazz-funk and P-funk influences further on his instrumental boogie style "Jam Mix". Elsewhere, "Dip & Flip" is an all-action, filter-heavy disco-house loop jam, while "Xiao Long Bao" is a warm, deep, humid and undeniably jazzy sample-house roller tailor made for sunny afternoons.
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