Search results: 3-O-Matic

Review: .NOW's Yearbook series of quadruple CD sets reaches 1990, a year in which the currents of dance music's future dominance of the pop charts became stronger and more pronounced. Of course, this being a pop-focused collection, the musical story told is far more varied. So while there are suitably baggy, bowl haircut-sporting indie-dance numbers from the likes of Candyflip, Happy Mondays and the Stone Roses, as well as crossover club hits from the likes of The KLF, the Adventures of Stevie V and Dee-Lite, you'll also find synth-pop melancholia from the Pet Shop Boys (including 'Being Boring', arguably Neil Tennant's best song), boy band business from New Kids on the Block, a dash of Kylie Minogue, alt-rock hits from Faith No More and Bon Jovi, and a blast of Elton John.

Review: The legendary NOW series is still going strong despite the fact that the music industry and how we access and listen to music has changed immeasurably since they first started way back in the 17th century (maybe.) Now they focus on serving up complete compendiums and comprehensive overviews of entire genres or decades. This NOW: Yearbook 1990 comes across three slabs of orange vinyl with names like Dee-Lite, Dusty Springfield, Duran Duran, Bass-O-Matic and many more all present and correct. If nothing else it is a great trip down memory lane and fine resource for jobbing DJs.

Review: Ghetto-house originator DJ Deeon continues to dish up devilishly dancefloor-friendly material a quarter of a century after making his debut on Dance Mania. This first ChiWax outing is really rather good. As with much of his output, all bar one of the six cuts (the curiously off-beat, pitched-down "Much Respect") are powered forward by beats and basslines so springy that you'd think they were made with some future fusion of rubber and elastic. There are a few cuts that boast chopped and looped vocal stabs (see "In This House" and the classic late night ghetto-house jack of "Da Bomb"), while the A-side's three booming cuts offer subtly different takes on percussion-rich, bass-heavy ghetto-tech.