Various – Paw To The Floor EP review

While still in its infancy, Brighton’s Wolf Music Recordings has already become a must-check label for fans of mid tempo house and disco. 2010 has been a vintage year for sub-120 BPM house, and Wolf Music has done more than most (bar, perhaps, the more edit-heavy Instruments Of Rapture) to showcase this sound. Here, they continue their ongoing quest to slow down the dance with another split EP featuring three essential tracks.

The Dead Rose Music Company open proceedings with “Just A Bitter Love”, a deliciously strung-out offering that further blurs the boundaries between disco and house. Like the best slo-mo music of this ilk – see recent releases by Mark E, Nicholas, the Revenge and others – “Just A Bitter Love” owes much of its heart-stopping attraction to the judicious use of heavily filtered disco vocal samples, carefully judged breakdowns and the sort of grandiose ‘happy finish’ that wouldn’t be out of place in a dirty movie. Brilliantly executed and perfectly judged, this track is outstanding.

Wolf stalwarts the Francis Inferno Orchestra up the tempo a little on “Time For Tea”, laying down a chugging, dubbed-out deep house groove that’s just crying out for late night club play. With its aquatic beats ‘n’ bass and dream-like, old skool vocal, it screams after party. An excellent package is rounded off by “We Want To Thank Our Friends”, an impressively dense work-out from Germany’s fast-rising Session Victim. Built around some choice loops and samples, it slowly builds into a bluesy deep workout that should get hips wiggling and toes tapping on dancefloors that crave good quality house music.

Matt Anniss