Juno Recommends Deep House: February 2023

Review: Electro-funk duo ANOTR (an ironic anagram of 'no art') present their debut album, The Rest. A foray through hi-fi future funk, as fitting for cruising down a digitized coastal boulevard as it is for remixing the Miami Vice soundtrack, the tracks on the album are invariably danceable, and no matter which you choose, will always be laden with bass licks. Likening their music to painting with zeal onto a blank canvas, and treating everything with a lighthearted chuckle, ANOTR are set to take instrumental dance music by storm.

Review: More good time, disco-fired fun from Italy's most positive musical duo, as Groove Culture founders Micky More and Andy Tee offer up four more reasons to be cheerful on one action-packed 12". They kick things off with their own musically expansive, soul-flecked, peak-time ready remix of Dutchican Soul's hybrid disco/hip-house workout 'Raise It Up', before offering us a chance to giddily dance along to Serge Funk's piano-heavy, house style disco workout 'Do It Again'. Flip the 12" for their stomping, organ-heavy gospel house tweak of 'Glory' by Reverendos of Soul, and the piano-powered, string-laden disco-house cheeriness that is Soulista's 'Symphomaniac'.

Review: The famous Nu Groove is about as influential as they come when you're talking about early house music. It had its own distinctive New Yorkian twist with much material on it produced by the legendary Burrell Brothers. Here we are reminded why it is such a vital label with an EP from Acid Jerks that embodies everything that made it so: warm kick drums, musical melodies and a sense of soul that is impossible to ignore. After a smooth opener, 'Distant Power Plant' has a more raw and menacing bassline tearing up the raw drums and 'A Thousand Kisses' then leans into a serene techno vibe but still with house music as the foundation. The warm late-night chords of closer 'Organ Grinder' make it the standout.

Review: GLBDOM is back with a second vinyl release as good as its first. This one pulls totters six super sweet racks from various artists who all share a subtly old-school vibe. The house they make comes with lovely retro-future feels and hints of 80s and early 90 magic. Jeff The Fool kicks off with timeless deep house and seductive French spoken words. The irresistible grooves come thick and fast from there with Scruscru & BR Selecta dropping in some kinetic 2step grooves, and dusty old and breakbeat sounds from FRR FONK come doused in synths soul. A trio of various jacking, smooth and soulful cuts see out the reverse.

Review: Toolroom Records are partly responsible for the recent upsurge in jackin' deep house in the early 2020's; this sampler record, the second in their compilations EP series, serves as yet another tour of their grand new deep house estate. Delusions of grandeur are expressed on 'You Are A God' - which, for a track so deitylike, measures itself with rather a lot of restraint - while 'Talking To Myself' contains a vocal sample that is so mouthy and infectious that we really are beginning to believe ourselves to have been possessed by Metatron. 'Mallet' swerves into tribal territory, while ESSEL's 'Try' could be a contender for dance-chart-topper, assuming its piano weaponry is effective enough at swaying the radio pluggers. Joyous stuff.

Review: As the title suggests, The Lost Remixes boasts a pair of previously unheard reworks from the vaults of Guy J's Bedrock-aligned Lost & Found label. On side A, Guy J dons his occasional Cornucopia alias to rework Volen Sentir's 2020 gem 'The Great Escape'. He opts for a deliciously delicate, dreamy, fluid and mood-enhancing revision that wraps gentle TB-303 acid lines and classic, late '90s-style progressive house aural textures (ambient pads, drifting chords, bubbly electronics and eyes-closed female vocal snippets) around a smooth, shuffling house groove. Thomas Koch aka Tantum takes over on the flip to deliver a revision of Kasper Koman's 2018 cut 'Loco Motif' that's as hypnotic, melodic, tactile and sonically beautiful as they come.

Review: Volume One of a label retrospective of pioneering early 90s Prog House label Interactive Test Compiled by Alex from Utopia Records and enigmatic Interactive Test founder Franco Falsini. Falsini, responsible for many of the underground classics on the label he founded in Florence in 1991 was first known for his 70s Italian Prog / Cosmic group Sensations Fix. A trailblazer who continued to push the boundaries of electronic music two decades later with Interactive Test, accompanied by the up-and-coming talents of Trance hero DJ Miki the Dolphin, his brother Riccardo and an host of cult Italian music producers. Here we start with 5 tracks from the archive, all highly collectable, remastered for DJs and psychedelic music enthusiastic alike from the best sources possible. Authentic and original dance sounds still hitting the spot in our times.

Review: Lee Burridge's All Day I Dream label is like the Ronseal of house music - it does what it says on the tin. It's been a while but at last the boss man himself is back on wax here, this time in collaboration with Los Desert across four fine tunes. 'Les Voyeurs De La Nuit' is a lovely jumbled-on scattered congas, toms and snaking synths that soon soothe the mind, body and soul. 'Slave To The Strings' is an elastic deep house cut with a busy melodic bassline and serene strings while 'You May Never Leave' is a sonic daydream tethered to a smooth, rolling house rhythm. 'Here With You' closes down with funky little guitar riffs stitched into another mind-expanding and gorgeously airy groove.

Review: You can't fault Defected for being always there and always on point. It truly embodies house music spirit and has done for decades on many different fonts. 'Spotlight' leans on an r&b jam familiar to many and it comes here with some fresh remixes. The original is rolling, soulful house with lush production, US garage drum shuffles and great vocals. Sam Divine adds plenty of weight bass and makes it a more tribal tech cut then two Mousse T remixes offer first a big, raw and piano-laced version as well as a slamming disco mix for the peak time.

Review: UK acid house pioneer Eddie Richards gets eight of his most important tracks reissued via the German label Repeat; this is the second of three mini-LPs to document the pioneer's works, many of which haven't seen the light of day in album form. Anyone who has had a passing interest in house over the years will know that Richards was an essential component in bringing it to London, became a resident at Frabric and pioneered his own vital tech house sound. This collection of his most vital tunes proves how good he was back then.

Review: Sophisticado Recordings label founder Vick Lavender is a man with a broad musical remit and someone who manages to connect the dots between several different styles with ease. From house to R&B, soul to jazz to funk he knows it all. Here he combines a laid-back and luging style with deep house grooves to great effect on his first volume in a new Vickstrumentals series that comes on 12" wax. Fans of Ron Trent, Fred P and Glenn Underground are all sure to find plenty to love here.

Review: Defected's numeral EP series is up to a 13th edition but this one is in no way unlucky for anyone. It collects together some of the biggest and most widely heard tunes of 2022 across two sides of wax. First up is the summer banger 'Rise Up' from Harry Romero & Inaya Day which dropped in June and was never far from a big moment. The Deep In Jersey remix of 'Rise Up' is more deep and dubby and then on the reverse Spanish artist David Penn offers 'Push The Feeling' with vocals from Leon Stanford. House hero Mike Dunn then pairs off with LOA for a hip-hop-leaning sound.

Review: Chad Pulley makes his first solo appearance on John Beltran's All Good Music label, although keener eyed spotters will know that Pulley and Beltran previously collaborated on a track under the Bel-Pull Productions moniker. He steps up to the task ably, slipping into All Good style comfortably with the calm and melodic, gracefully coasting techno of 'Through My Eyes', before the flip side reveals the wistful 'Mesmerizing Blue', where pianos and synths call and respond over exotic rhythms. 'Sticks' completes the set, slightly harder and funkier than its two predecessors but again with an emphasis on musicality, off kilter danceability and originality. On this showing, a name to watch.

Review: REPRESS ALERT!: Six years after delivering his debut album - a digital-only affair called TruSkool - Demuir has finally got round to recording a follow-up. The Toronto native's brand of house is chunky, groovy, deep and funky, taking cues not only from previous collaborators such as DJ Sneak, but also those of his contemporaries that make great use of dusty samples and killer drum programming. As a result, Visions manages to work both as a collection of club-focused cuts and an album you can listen to repeatedly from start to finish. Our picks of a pleasingly strong bunch include the fluid, disco-tinged, Hipnotic-sampling brilliance of 'Mind, Body & Soul Call Me', TUSH hook-up 'Skylar' (a superb slab of gospel-tinged soulful house) and the delicious Fred P collaboration 'Dream (Part II)'.

Review: Don't let the different spelling of Gabriel make you think this is not making reference to the stone-cold garage classic from Roy Davis Jr and Peven Everett. Because it is. It is a deep house reworking with the iconic vocal from that one reworked and redeployed over taught bass and rippling metal snares. That first PsychoFunk edit is also served up as a fat-bottomed dub, plus a main mix and an instrumental that will sure bring some freakiness to the floor in a different way to the smooth and seductive original.

Review: The Master at Work that is Louie Vega has been a music-making machine all his life but in recent years has continued to reach new heights with various different projects. Here he is back on regular label Nervous with various different versions of his tunes 'Joy Universal' and 'Igobolo.' 'Joy Universal' (feat Two Soul Fusion) is classic Vega - soulful house music awash with Latin influences, loose-limbed percussion and funky basslines. And that template is tweaked over the ensuing tunes, with glorious pianos, jazzy grooves and tropical rhythms all making for a fine EP.

Review: Prolific producer Felipe Gordon rounds off another tremendous 12 months of releases with a first appearance on Nervous Records' 'Nervous Chill' offshoot, a sub-label dedicated to the deeper and jazzier end of the house spectrum. Saxophonist Paul Shapiro guests on both tracks, adding a touch of emotive, eyes-closed expression to the Colombian's typically tasteful, musically rich house tracks. A-side 'Elisa' is beautiful and attractive, with Shapiro jazzin' away above a tasty mix of squelchy acid bass, twinkling pianos, spacey chords and rolling deep house drums. 'Resonant Memories' is a slightly bolder and denser affair, with lower register sax lines wrapping around more heavily layered beats, glassy-eyed synth stabs and immersive chords.

Review: A strong example of contemporary deep house that blends in a regional and deep sound palette, Makebo's 'Belief' is the next EP to top up the artist's repertoire. Following up releases on the likes of Anjuna and Peace Symphonies, this EP works through four tricky yet melodic and depth-plunging forward-movers, carefully removing and adding elements back in, in direct correlation with our faith in the music. Whatever belief system you ascribe to, 'Belief' zooms out into an amorally blissful zone - the self-titled closer is a particular highlight.

Review: Last year, Whirlpool Productions' most renowned moment, throbbing 1996 jam 'From Disco To Disco', reappeared on 12". Here the track, which was produced and released by the trio of Justus Kohncke, hans Nieswandt and Eric D Clark (who provided the song's distinctive vocals) in 1996, transfers to 7" single for the very first time. It remains a fine chunk of disco-not-disco, with warming electric piano motifs and Clark's idiosyncratic vocals rising above a deep, throbbing, Italo-inspired bassline and crunchy house drums. This 45 edition also boasts what appears to be a previously unreleased instrumental edit, which does a fantastic job of building and releasing energy while giving the sometimes-wild Rhodes licks a chance to shine. A stone-cold classic!

Review: This fine double-pack features more alternate takes of tracks from Louie Vega's vast Expansions in the NYC album. The headline attraction is the epic extended mix of the Rod Temperton penned jazz-funk/disco classic 'The Star of a Story', which not only boasts fine lead vocals from Lisa Fischer and shuffling samba-house beats, but also strings (arranged by Leroy Burgess) performed Kelley Polar and his colleagues in the Apple Hill quartet. The EP also includes instrumental and chunky 'Vamp Dub' passes of that track, plus alternative versions of two other tracks: the organic deep house roll of 'A Place Where We Can All Be Free' and a superb string-laden dub of 'Love Has No Time Or Place', featuring Vega's Elements of Life band, which showcases the orchestral arrangements of Leroy Burgess and the late Patrick Adams.

Review: A 12" featuring four different artists from the relatively new label from DJ and producer Anton Bogomolov aka Scruscru (SlothBoogie Jamz/Omena), although it has to be said its individuality and freshness are increasingly upping its profile as each new released drops. Russian duo Street Choice open up this time round, getting the swears in in a matter of seconds (and throughout) but lifting us into orbit with 'Still On Is MF Record', a gloriously sweat soaked collision of house, disco and US garage. Evidently feeling a bit more mellow, Scruscru himself offers up a Flute mix of 'Long & Sleepless Nights', evoking jazzier French house scenesters like Etienne de Crecy or St Germain. On the flip, Juravlove's 'Boys & Girls' ups the tempo again and the mood with it, a cure acid line sneaking in behind more organic instrumentation. The more reflective Nephews' 'Polo Blanco' brings things to a warm, more snuggly close, ultimately leaving us with an Ep that has heaps of variety and quality in equal measures.

Review: Toolroom might be better known for its big room digital house releases but here Mark Knight's now globally renowned label makes a bold move with a hand-stamped one-sided 12". It comes from Weiss, a producer who knows how to get a floor in a sweat, and is a loopy, party-starting jam that will be perfect for those festive dances that always have an extra air of celebration. The Jones Girls provide the soulful vocal which is looped over a leggy disco-house beat and low-slung bass. A breakdown brings the filters and teases the return before the drop arrives and the roof gets blown off. Simple but effective.

Review: Vintage Culture is a uniquely skilled house artist, having scaled the heights of superstardom whale retaining a relatively unique sonic identity. How might one describe his sound? We would describe it in select terms: raw, packed with texture, blazing, and tinged with an uptempo flavour that recalls the slapdash and sample-filled approach of many French house artists. This new EP from Defected celebrates four of Vintage Culture's most recent productions, documenting a variety of approaches to an oppressive, energetic and all-round rabid house mode.

Review: Serge Funk lies on the intersection of ironic future funk and straight-up clean disco edits, having made a recent name for himself as a wonderkid for disco- and funky-house versions. A re-editor for the diggers as opposed to the bait heads, 'You & I' and 'Yeah Yeah' are utter bangers devoid of much relation to their originals (indeed, there's no way of telling what the samples are without a record buyers' knowledge), in large part thanks to their working into beat-centric structures that drown out the vocals in favour of kick slappage and gut-punchage. Rhythm over theme; keeping things vibey, felt.

Review: Peace Symphonies returns this week with a various artists compilation titled Symphony Of The Early Awake. Marvin Sun rules the A-side, with label staple Gorje Hewek delivering two edits of his tracks, all the while still retaining their Balearic deep house quality, followed by Alexey Union - who also is no stranger to the label - presenting the dreamy rooftop fantasy of 'Yakamoz'. Over on the flip, the All Day I Dream/Tale + Tone influence continues with the glassy-eyed and bittersweet 'Milky Way' by Amonita likewise catering to your ethereal sonic needs.

Review: A Moodymann remix is a mad rare thing. The singular Detroit producer very rarely steps out to tackle other people's music but when he does the world takes note. This time he sets to work on 2022's 'Hold On To It' by Colonel Red and Inkswel. In his hands, it becomes a distinctively low sling bit of sleazy deep house with punctured drums, off-grid pianos and his own vocal mutterings. Potatohead People offer a more lush and soulful downbeat vibe, while a Moodorama Weird Mistake is perfect for late-night back rooms and the Moodorama Deep Rise mix is all bubbly bass and melodies that provide real musical comfort.

Review: Audiojack have been UK underground mainstays for some time. They make a trip across the pond to Claude Von Stroke's US label Dirtybird here and take with them their useful house sounds. 'Stay Strong' has been heard on dance floors for a while now and brings lush melodies to a spaced out breakbeat rhythm. It's warm and dreamy without ever losing sight of the groove and is backed with 'In Your Eyes'. This one also builds around a clean, crispy breakbeat with a slight hint of electro. The melodies are delightfully clean and reflective, as if programmed by some futuristic AI. They dance around the lithe groove which is underpinned with a booming bassline which carries you off into a cosmic night sky.

Review: A new label out of Mexico, Short Attention Records launches its second release with a five track offering of proper melodic house & techno from Hector Ram with the word 'quality' stamped large upon them. 'Midnight Sounds' starts things off with the grand rhythmically-building 'Midnight Sounds', almost New Order-esque at times. 'For Our Small Parties' follows, old skool again in flavour, blending subtly employed breaks and a sturdy house framework, then 'Dear Dancefloor', probably the gentlest and most fragile effort here, opens side two. 'On The Road' boasts a more electro feel and Orbital-esque synths, and is deemed worthy of a second airing via a nicely throbbing remix from Detroit's Generation Next closing proceedings.

Review: What better way to open your New Year that with a heart swelling soulful house tune that cannot fail to swell you with emotion. Gerald Mitchell aka Los Hermanos's 'Another Day' is just that, a sweet coming together of acoustic string work, a perfect soul sample that is dusty and aching, and claps and kicks that roll for days. From the gospel tones of the opener we head to the electric techno-jazz of 'Binary Funk Infusion' featuring Bob Rogue its finally on to 'The Billy Love Experience (Let Love Live)', a jazzy house workout with Sun-Ra synths and noodling Rhdoes that are utterly life affirming.

Review: Three years after it first dropped digitally, J T Donaldson's Classic Music label debut finally makes it onto wax. The EP naturally opens with the long-serving deep house producer's original mix, a wonderfully sun-splashed and warming slab of electric-piano-heavy deep house goodness marked out by a superbly soulful - but also pleasingly laidback - lead vocal from guest singer Liv E. Donaldson's own bumpin', club-heavy remix - think vintage Masters at Work and you're close - follows, before we're treated to two fresh revisions from other producers. Fellow house veteran Sandy Rivera delivers a typically drowsy, soulful and tasteful rework, before Girls of The Internet re-invent the track as a bustling slab or elastic jazz-house complete with layered analogue synth sounds and heady double bass.