Juno Recommends Funky House: May 2023

Review: Mindhelmet is one of the freshest underground labels out there right now. It has excelled at mining a rich vein of electronic sounds where space music, techno, electro and minimal all combine into fresh new forms. Wickham is next up with some colourful and creative party sounds on this 11th label EP. 'Lost Grain' is all bouncy bass and splashy cymbals, 'Busker' is a stripped-back tech pumper and 'Crowded' has lively and playful synth stabs that will get any floor vibing. The flipside offers three more similar tight, vivid yet spaced out dancefloor gems.

Review: To mark the 20th Anniversary of the American Life Mix Show Mix, this new album brings together eight songs that also honour the life and work of Peter Rauhofer, a notorious remixer who did many such great works for Madonna for over two decades. Six of these tunes are brand new edits of Madonna's top commercial and promotional remixes from the 'American Life' era that have never been released before. The two others are a superb Ralphi Rosario House Vocal Mix of 'Love Profusion' and Deepsky's Home Sweet Home Vocal Edit of 'Hollywood.'

Review: The [PIAS] umbrella label celebrates its 40th anniversary with a slew of EPs from their favourite labelbound mainstays, adding up to a big compilation at the end. One such contribution is Junior Jack, an alias of Vito Lucente: an Italian-born, Belgian-based house music producer responsible for no end of dancefloor stonkers since the late 90s. From the funky disco of 'Thrill Me' and 'E Samba' to the electro-pop of 'Da Hype' with Robert Smith of The Cure, this is a bubbly five-tracker that verily looks back on of the polka-dot Ibizan mood of Lucente's music.

Review: Rosie Gaines will also be synonymous with her smash hit single 'Closer Than Close' (also the name of her fifth album) which now gets reissued by the Demon Record Singles Club. Gaines actually started her career back in 1985 when she perfumed and recorded with The Curtis Ohlson Band but it was when she was a member of Prince & The New Power Generation that she really got noticed. Her Closer Than Close album came in 1995 and soon after she was dropped by Motown, but a remix of the title track a year so so later arrived in club land on bootleg and sold over eight million copies around the world.

Review: Sound Exhibitions are back with another of their bumper box set collections which pull together the works of several key label artists. There are five 7"s in all and a wide range of styles from the pumping disco funk of Luciano FM's opener 'Fly Guy' to the more deep house leaning grooves of Mosaik's 'Pazarski Den' (Chicago Beatdown). Jazzed up disco and infectious hand claps get the party going on Monsieur Van Pratt's 'This Jazz (For Jorman)' and there is also some seductive slow motion beatdown from friends and long time musical collaborators Luciano FM & Stradivarius on their 'Nu Cafe.'