Search results: Real McCoy

Review: The story of The Hi Hat starts way back in 1978, when Mark Cotgrove aka Snowboy (but back then Djing under the name of Mad Marx) used to hire The Goldmine Club on Canvey Island, Essex to promote and play jazz music on a wednesday night. Fast forward to 1986 and a new venture alongside fellow DJs Bob Jones and Phil Levine is in the pipeline. Stuck for a name, Snowboy suggested "The Hi Hat" and since then it has stuck. The next few years saw the session grow in size, and with a change of venue also a temporary change in name to "Across The Tracks". The next chain in the story is a certain club promoter called Eddie Piller, owner of the legendary Acid Jazz label. In 1995, having opened his seminal Blue Note Club in the heart of Hoxton, Eddie approached Snowboy to host a Jazz Dance session. Reviving the Hi-Hat name, the event kicked off in January of 1995 - attracting the best dancers in London and further afield, it wasn't long before it was gaining the reputation of the hardest session in the land! With a few more venue changes along the way, the Hi-Hat finally settled at the legendary Jazz Café - and is still packing them in to this day! The music on this, the third in "The Hi-Hat" series, is a reflection of the hard-hitting dancefloor jazz that is held in high regard at the session. All of the tracks have become anthems in their own right, with many of the artists playing live to the crowd of dancers and audience over the years. The UK's Sirius B have made many friends at the Hi-Hat, as have Holland's New Cool Collective - an 11 piece tour de force of jazz, latin and afro. Others, such as Brighton's Cubana Bop serve up a cool slice of afro cuban and the dangerously uncompromising 'Free' Afro-Jazz of World Saxophone Quartet's cover of Miles Davis' "7 Steps To Heaven" really sorts the men from the boys on the floor. Also featured is a rare and compelling live version of "Sunny Day" by Jon Lucien (known simply in certain circles as "The Voice") alongside floorfillers from brazillian percussion legend Airto Moreira plus classics from Bobby Sanabria and McCoy Tyner.

Review: You'd be hard-pressed to find a collection of euro house and dance music more chock-full of hits than this. In the vein of the early 90s dance compilations, Music On Vinyl gathers two discs packed with landmark dance records and massively popular crossover tracks like Haddaway's 'What Is Love', 2 Unlimited's sports arena classic No Limit', Snap!'s timeless 'Rhythm Is A Dancer' and the worldwide hit 'Pump Up The Jam' by Technotronic. The great thing about this release is the inclusion of many other lesser known but memorable gems like T-Spoon 'Sex On The Beach' and Twenty 4 Seven's 'Slave To The Music'. A whopping 27 tracks in total to take you back to the days when dance music owned the airwaves and the clubs.

Review: Continuing Four Flies' dedication to delving into lesser-explored periods of Italian music, Africamore: The Afro-Funk Side of Italy (1973-1978) takes us on a captivating carpet-ride into the intersection of Afro-funk and the Italian soundscape prevalent in the six years between 1973 and 1978 - a time when disco was still in its nascence, and the nightclub market was rapidly expanding. Bottling the critical moment at which DJs such as Dave Mancuso discovered Manu Dibango's 'Soul Makossa' - with classics such like Jean Paul & Angelique's 'Africa Sound' and Nat King Cole's 'Calypso Blues' following as floor-bound hits - all these productions pushed the boundaries of dance music at a time when disco had not yet taken over.

Review: There is little that Germany's Klaus Schulze has not done or been involved in over the years. For starters, he was part of Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel as the lead drummer, which is enough of a statement to not warrant any further words, and was probably one of the most influential figures of the infamous Krautrock movement. La Vie Electronique, which has only previously been released on CD, back in 2009 on Revisited Rec, isa wonderfully loose collection of experimental works from the early to mid 1970s - the man's formative years. In the shadow of this material, most contemporary drone or ambient music falls flat, or even dead on its arse. The freedom and vision with which these tunes are constructed is a marvel in its own right, travelling ever so gracefully through the endless plethora of atmospherics that seem to have looked into the future. Leave you pounds aside for this badboy. Warmly recommended.

Review: State Of Mind's "Dead Zone" has support from Friction, Ed Rush and more.