Hell Yeah Italy Vinyl & CDs

Review: Finally, four years after their sublime debut album on Church, Italian loose-limbed downtempo magicians Aura Safari are back with a follow up long player. This one comes on the much loved Hell Yeah and is another dreamy and escapist blend of dub, jazz, Afro-cosmic, Balearica and boogie sounds that are all expertly arranged. There's a mix of synths, keys, drums and bass from members Andrea Moretti, Lorenzo Lavoratori, Daniele Melloni and Nicholas Iammatteo that is utterly timeless and immediately heart swelling. Take a second to sink into the likes of 'Riserva Naturale' and you will soon feel your woes melt away, ready to get those hips moving as the sun sets to sounds like 'Magic Malbe.' An essential record that must not be slept on.

Review: Talented Italian collective Aura Safari features well known Italian house producer Nicolas amongst other fine musicians. They have released a fine album on UK label Church but now head to their homeland's Hell Yeah for a debut EP full of magic. 'Lagos Connect' fuses afro drumming with house beats, lush synth work and glowing melodies to make for something beautifully grown up and musical as well as danceable. After the reprise and dub comes 'Morning Rivers,' a super slinky and seductive jazz-funk number with glowing, golden chords and subtle cosmic rays of light.

Review: Sensory Blending hears Finnish artist Jimi Tenor and Italian group Aura Safari team up for an impromptu studio shebang in Perugia, Italy, after Tenor's storied but clandestine performance at a Hell Yeah party. Despite no prior connection, the musicians quickly found common ground, forging a vivant fusion of jazz-funk, tropicalia and soul. Tenor's psychedelic style gelled Aura Safari's faster, intuited approach, resulting in such tracks as 'Bodily Synesthesia,' 'Bewitched By The Sea' and 'Lunar Wind', each of which connect seductive grooves and ghost noted keys. Possibly performed live at select events later in the year, the record is a perfect storm of recorded "live feel" Balearica.

Review: Japanese downtempo master Calm has many a great album in his arenas, and plenty of tracks form them have been reworked into new and equally great forms. Hell Yeah has been responsible for a batch of them and the Italian label has more of them here. Willie Graff kicks off with his version of 'I Love You' which is all dreamy and mature Balearic bliss. Gallo's Tropical Hinterhof remix of the same tune is even more sultry with some sensuous sax notes, while live outfit Aura Safari offer a gorgeously melodic and beauty take on 'Feel It' and then a Daydream remix of 'Kunpoo' that is all widescreen synths and gently broken beats for sundown fun.

Review: On paper, this may seem an unlikely collaboration - Japanese ambient and deep acid stalwart meets eccentric Finnish lounge, jazz and exotica veteran - but it's a genuinely brilliant EP. 'Big City Takes' genuinely makes the best of both Calm and Jimi Tenor's talents, with the latter's eyes-closed vocals, evocative flutes and shuffling exotica rhythms fitting perfectly with the former's stirring strings and immersive ambient electronics. Tapes remixes, first delivering a jazzy hip-hop informed head-nodder before serving up some ambient dub/digi-dub fusion, before Calm delivers his version of a second Tenor collaboration, 'Time and Space' - an ambient jazz masterpiece. Vendetta Suite's warming, subtly tropical Balearic rework of that track is also brilliant. Tip!

Review: DJ Motive hails from he charming city of Gifu, Japan, and has spent 20 years crafting a signature blend of Latin, jazz and hip-hop both solo and with DeadBundy. His latest release draws on all that experience to cook up a tasteful soundtrack that will transport you from dawn to dusk. Tracks like 'Sunrise' offer dreamy broken beats and nostalgic samples, while 'Chill On A Lotus' melts vocals and chords into an ambient haze. Jazz drums meet Balearic vibes in 'Howling 2 You' while 'Walker grooves with squelchy synths. This reflective, escapist trip rewards deep listening and is another high class album from sophisticated Italian label Hell Yeah.

Review: Leya Touch and soFa elsewhere, known as Dream Baby Dream, merge their unconventional musical styles in their self-titled album, out now on the wonderful Hell Yeah . Their sound weaves occult synths and processed vocals over dubbed-out, mid-tempo rhythms to create a retro-futurist blend of cold wave, cosmic disco, dub, and trance. The duo, who see themselves as "two children who refused to grow up," offer a dreamlike journey through playful yet melancholic soundscapes from seductive melodies in 'Love Zone' to the eerie dub of 'Carpenter On The Beach, the album is a captivating mix of past, present, and future musical elements.

Review: While Hell Yeah! Recordings has devoted much time to the Balearic end of its output of late, the Italian label has released plenty of future disco and evocative deep house over the years too. The imprint's latest EP, from Fderico Constantini under his now familiar Lumindisco alias, largely sits in the former camp - the the influence of Balearic warmth and colour can definitely be heard on the dreamy nu-disco rush of opener 'Solero'. Constantini doffs a cap to dusty blends of wonky deep house and r&b on the Detroit-influenced excellence of 'Jazzclub', before opting for a slow, trippy and chugging slow house flex on 'Bigfoot'. To round things off, he joins the dots between percussive Afro-cosmic vibes and triple-time electronic highlife ('Sako').

Review: Hell Yeah is one of the best labels out there if you love grown-up house, delicious downtempo and nu-Balearic. Even amongst its unpredictable catalogue though this one is a wonderful curveball that has already been supported by Sean Johnston, Jaye Ward, Max Essa and Francois K. It is a debut album from the Italian Michele Mininni that makes for an involving and adventurous trip that blends broken beats, worldly rhythms, jazz, eastern melodies, live drums, and more into a thrilling 15-track opus, all with a leftfield perspective. A diverse array of rhythms, melodies, and instruments from around the globe all feature in this escapist summer delight.

Review: Last year, Quiroga (real name Walter Del Vecchio) returned to Hell Yeah! Recordings with an impressive dose of TB-303-laden dancefloor psychedelia, the superb 'Acid Dropout EP'. 'French Kiss', the title track from his latest EP for the popular Italian imprint, is a more immersive, warm and hazy affair, where sweet female vocal snippets, warming Rhodes riffs and dreamy electronics rise above a shuffling, mid-temp deep house beat and organic-sounding bassline. His trademark acid lines naturally feature on the accompanying 'Baia Club Ambient Version', a shuffling breakbeat affair that takes cues from Italian 'ambient house' (IE dream house) rather than beat-free soundscapes. It is, though, genuinely superb. Turn to the flip for two bonus cuts: the vintage Jazzanova-esque broken house brilliance of 'Ask Coppede' and the deep, Balearic-fired electro shuffle of 'Cala Ventosa'.

Review: Two years ago, Italy's Balearic Gabba Soundsystem switched from remixing and re-editing their favourite cuts to curating compilation style EPs of similarly minded fare. They're in that mode again here, presenting a trio of cuts that combine the saucer-eyed warmth and loved-up musicality of Balearic music culture with grooves and rhythms firmly focused on the dancefloor. They begin by showcasing Wallace's sublime remix of Sewell & The Gong's 'Better Worlds', a locked-in, hypnotising fusion of semi-organic deep house grooves, new age melodic motifs and the dreamiest of ambient chords. Over on the flip they dip into slo-mo Italo-disco/acid house fusion via SIRS fine revision of My Friend Dario's 'Tell Aro', before treating us to a Pedro Bertho remix of Verdo's 'Belvourdier' in which sparkling Balearic house piano riffs, undulating acid lines and mid-80s "chorus" synth sounds rise above a fluctuating synthesiser bassline and hustling beats.

Review: The Vendetta Suite returns in early 2025 with a stunning pair of singles on Hell Yeah, blending acid acerb, house heat, disco d'oeuvres and a Balearic bliss. Long thought by some to be Belfast's best-kept secret, the Suite has garnered well-deserved traction for his genre-spanning productions, fusing ambient, post-rave, dub and psychedelic. First up, 'The Jam Answer' reinvents acid house with dusty analogue drums, hypnotic 303s, and cosmic cantatas; then the flipper 'Island Hill Microdot' drifts over into dreamy Chicago house and IDM, offering a lusher, tuned bamboo percussive pelagi-scape.