This week at Juno

With Record Store Day upon us, there’s no better time to stand up and appreciate the multitude of hard working labels and artists out there who still put their heart and soul into the production, presentation and feel of their music, 365 days a year.

A host of releases came through the doors this week that provided a timely reminder not to take these people for granted; perhaps our pick of the bunch came from Spanish imprint Hivern Disc, who gave Teengirl Fantasy’s epic house jam “Cheaters” the 12″ vinyl pressing it craved, alongside new remixes from John Talabot and Beautiful Swimmers. Not far behind was the big release from Citinite – one of London’s best kept secrets –  who enlisted modern day artists synonymous with current electro-funk/boogie revival to reinterpret tracks from the cult 80s band Sexual Harrassment.

And while the name Timothy Fairplay may only be familiar to those of you who frequent the 19th hole of the Rotters Golf Club, French imprint Astro Lab (itself an under appreciated gem) did their bit to thrust Mr. Fairplay into the spotlight with three new cuts. Remix action from Andy Weatherall if you don’t mind! Meanwhile Use Of Weapons maintained its high standards of quality with some muggy, chuggy, druggy beatdown courtesy of man like Cottam, with Deep Space Orchestra and Hunee chipping in with remixes.

A delivery from the good folks at Hardwax is always exciting, even more so when said delivery contains new Wax material. The fourth instalment in the series lives up to its predecessors – check out our review here. Also flying the flag for quality techno was Sascha Rydell who dropped some new heat on the Fachwerk label he runs with Mickey Dehnert and Roman Lindau. Big props too go to Mojuba for reissuing Tyree Cooper’s 1995 Dance Mania classic “Nuthin Wrong” along with a particularly woozy B-Side version that plays from the inside out.

Irish imprint Naked Lunch continued to career impressively between tempos and genres with their first release in 2011 shifting the focus towards Canada. Toronto based producer Kevin McPhee was at the helm for his debut release, delving in a thick gloopy sound that’s akin to a drunken Mount Kimbie getting their freak on.

Berlin’s resident hard edged popstrel Emika returned to Ninja Tune for a third time – with “Count Backwards” echoing her previous output in confounding expectations. Adventurous in its rhythmic leanings and cloaked in a smoky and sinister backdrop, “Count Backwards” has us wondering what Emika could achieve over the length of an album (be sure to check the remixes from Kryptic Minds and Marcel Dettmann too). Elsewhere Bristol types Futureboogie launched their record label with a statement of intent, squeezing yet more house sounds out of the West Country ginger demon Julio Bashmore, while Jamie Woon got the remix treatment from Royce Wood, HudMo and Debruit.

Juno Download fans will have no doubt been pleased with the arrival of Instra:mental’s soon-to-be seminal album Resolution 653 into the digital domain. If you haven’t heard it yet we’ll allow you to stop reading now to check it out.

There were cheeky disco exclusives from Chicken Lips and Peter Visti, as well as the long (and we mean long) awaited debut album from NYC synth gurus Holy Ghost. And those of you you tuned into Tiger & Woods’ Resident Advisor podcast around the turn of the year will no doubt have been scrambling feverishly for the Ben Sun track “Salty Tears” (which we reviewed a while back) – well now it’s available digitally for the first time.

There were some excellent CDs this week too, most notably the hugely listenable Gatto Fritto album on International Feel, Agoria’s entry into the Fabric mix hall of fame, In Flagranti’s new album, a killer compilation from Danish techno label Echocord and Ata’s Live At The Robert Johnson mix. And those of you who don’t fancy going without food for a week to buy a vinyl copy of Sandwell District’s Feed-Forward album off Discogs, worry not as it’s now available on CD!

And if that hasn’t satisfied your musical craving for the week, why not head over and chow down on some Delsin pie?