Curtea Veche Vinyl & CDs

Review: Disuasiv are the duo of Romanians in Milan Dragosh and Andi Parlogea, who have had previous releases on tastemaker labels such as Broquade, Memoria and Pointilisme Musique. Their new 'Project M' EP shows off their flair for energetic tech house with futuristic tendencies once again, for local imprint Curtea Veche. This release inaugurates their new limited series, but keeping in kind that the parent label has released top notch Eastern European artists such as Sepp and Herck: so you know you are in good hands. The rolling and hypnotic "Brother Loopy" is quality gear to rock the crowd at that peak moment, with its tough groove. It also gets an amazing remix on the flip by homeboy Cally, which takes it deeper into after hours territory: the sort of track you'd imagine Cezar dropping at 7 in the morning! The percussion driven title track is assisted by an equally powerful bass and airy pads - this will mix in well with your Sepp or Nu Zau records.

Review: Prolific producer Arno Volker AKA Einzelkind returns with his first outing of 2019, this time in cahoots with regular studio buddy and Point of View label founder Giuliano Lomonte. Between them, the experienced pair has conjured up a couple of exceptionally strong peak-time workouts. We're particularly enjoying A side "Civil Stretch", a bounding and melodically attractive affair where bubbly electronic motifs, alien chords and jaunty stabs rise above a rubbery, hip-swinging house groove. Flipside "This N That" continues in a similar hybrid tech-house/deep house vein, with the duo bolting woozy chords and eccentric vocal samples onto bustling drums and a thickset electronic bassline.

Review: Curtea Veche's fifth transmission in the serii speciale series is a real doozy. It comes from the ever more essential Gathaspar on 12" transparent vinyl, with one track on each side.The opener starts as an experimental mix of single piano keys, tumbling drum sounds, spoken words and mysterious street level charm before a rugged rubbery baseline rolls off into the future. On the flip, 'Op 23' again pairs the weird and wonderful with the seductive and salacious. The bass and drums and gooey, the synths trippy, and it adds up to a perfectly heady late night sound.

Review: When someone from Bucharest is being proclaimed as one of the city's finest tech-house producers, you know he or she is going to deliver the tech-house goods. That's certainly the case with Guy From Downstairs, a fast-rising artist who has yet to put a foot wrong (release-wise, at least). You'll find more rock-solid club fare on the Romanian's latest EP, beginning with the fluttering dream house motifs, crunchy tech-house grooves and sampled spoken word vocals of "Rodul". If you're after something more stripped back and percussive, "Drumul Spre" ticks all the right boxes, with Harck's flipside rework, an even more low-slung and quietly funk-fuelled tech-house take, also impressing. "Booty Q", a slightly more intergalactic chunk of early morning tech-house, completes another decent Guy From Downstairs EP.

Review: Herck is Romanian producer Cilibiu Sergiu-Mario and he serves up a fine release here. "Luminiscente Proprii" is redolent of local legend Petre Inspirescu's sublime minimalist journeys that similarly flirt with classical music aesthetics. Meanwhile, it's a more straight ahead affair on "Fluxio" on this funky, bumpin' and glitchy microhouse journey: eastern European style. On the flip "Sistem Binar"is less hi-tech, on the contrary; this dusty acid house influenced affair is more suited to the afterhours and that sampled monologue atop is rather familiar. Finally "Speaktral" implements some subtle broken beats beneath some ethereal chords and generally hypnotic elements. All in all this fits right into the status quo of Romania's dynamic and distinct sound right now.

Review: Reboot has been committed to the art of minimal tech house for a long time now, and his sound evolves with the same measured elegance as his DJ sets. There's space for balmy deep house chords and disco loops in the stew now, but crisp functionality and tracky immersion remains the order of the day as 'Make You Move' locks into to its seductive arrangement. 'Alternate' toys with swirling, dubby synth work around the steadfast beat, while 'Unstop' piles on a little more hand-drum action for a dense, engrossing rhythm workout - whichever mood you're after and however long you want to ride them, these tracks won't let you down in the mix.