Fools Paradise Vinyl & CDs

Review: Toolroom's Fool's Paradise offshoot has done a good job in offering up fresh, disco-inspired material, but it also acts as an outlet for key crew member Michael Gray's 21st century reworks of classic disco cuts. On this 12", the long-serving Essex producer puts his slant on Inner Life's boogie-era gem 'I Like It Like That', a 1982 Salsoul single fronted by a then young Jocelyn Brown and produced by Leroy Burgess and Patrick Adams associate Stan Lucas. Gray begins with a lightly housed-up - but suitably reverential - full vocal remix, ensuring plenty of space for the studio band's squiggly synths, bold pianos and dextrous bass guitar. Arguably even better is the B-side 'Dub', which alternates between heavy groove sections, extended breakdowns and effects-laden showcases of Inner Life's piano, bass and synths.

Review: The "fool's paradise" is a classic device, espoused by many a luminary from Milton to Dante, referring to a special kind of metaphysical plane reserved for those too foolhardy to reflect on their lived misdeeds in any of the main three afterlives: heaven, hell or purgatory. It stands to reason, then, that a small band of nu-disco and house proponents should name their label after it, not least for the stupefying power of disco, and/or the sense of having evaded our sins when compelled to dance! A spin-off of Toolroom, head soundsmith Mark Knight gathers four guardian expiators to lead us into the vainest of all discotheques - Joey Vegas, Tenacious, Sgt. Slick, and Tommy Glasses - for a lulling set of automotive power-disco dreams, in which many a familiar sample from our fleshly lives - from the 70s and 80s, to be exact - filter in and out.