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Review: First released in digital and CD formats via Sacred Rhythm, 'Progessive Roots Evolution: A Song For Healing' hears Joaqin 'Joe' Claussell's indelible style of long-form spiritual house music re-flaunted to especial somatic ends. Intentionally crafted as a piece that bridges the needs of both the music and dance communities to whom Claussell is mutually close, this is a suite divided into multiple sections that feed on one another; they appose elements of samba, jazz and house, with ambient interstices and even ruminative piano meltdowns ('Healer', 'Heloise'). This ultra limited yellow LP edition is the audiophile's preference, its dynamism best flaunted on the floaty but driving 'Cosmic Arts' mix.

Review: 'Cuss Cuss' comes all the way from 1960 and is the most celebrated and well known tune from the man born Lloyd Altamont Thomas Robinson. He was a dancehall don who died a decade ago but not before releasing some 50 odd singles and EPs. 'Cuss Cuss' is devastatingly short and deals - a dark vibe pervades the deeply burrowed bass and the vocals are the sound of him making a plea for bad vibes to leave his life. On the flip side here is a version that is more lo-fi, stripped back and deep - as if playing from the room next door, almost.

Review: P-VINE present a limited box set from their popular "Groove Diggers'' reissue series. All tracks selected by DJ Muro, one of Japan's best known DJs/producers/diggers and pressed on 7" for the first time, featuring classics from Erik Tagg, Prince Billy Mahdi Wright, Billy Wooten, Spice, & 1619 Bad Ass Band.

Review: Hivern Discs presents a very intriguing and totally unique project from Drames Rurals, a shadowy collective endeavour credited to "meritxell, oriol, ignasi and juns." Presented across three 7"s packed in a handmade sackcloth box, the careful presentation of the sounds matches up to the music, which rolls at low tempos and deals in hypnotic, ritualistic mantras with an earthen, spiritual feel. There's a dubby twist at times, and it feels like a series of happenings from an in-tune gathering rather than an over-composed project, and therein lies the magic. Who knows whether Hivern main man John Talabot is involved, but after last year's low-key Koraal project he might well be without making a big deal about it.

Review: This fine double-pack features more alternate takes of tracks from Louie Vega's vast Expansions in the NYC album. The headline attraction is the epic extended mix of the Rod Temperton penned jazz-funk/disco classic 'The Star of a Story', which not only boasts fine lead vocals from Lisa Fischer and shuffling samba-house beats, but also strings (arranged by Leroy Burgess) performed Kelley Polar and his colleagues in the Apple Hill quartet. The EP also includes instrumental and chunky 'Vamp Dub' passes of that track, plus alternative versions of two other tracks: the organic deep house roll of 'A Place Where We Can All Be Free' and a superb string-laden dub of 'Love Has No Time Or Place', featuring Vega's Elements of Life band, which showcases the orchestral arrangements of Leroy Burgess and the late Patrick Adams.

Review: Following a series of tweaked reissues featuring previously forgotten (and unreleased) remixes of back catalogue gems, Masters at Work offer up something even more special: a double-pack containing four tracks rediscovered in their archives last year. They begin with the bubbly, mid-tempo NYC house shuffle of 'MAW Apes Groove' - all warming organ chords, bubbly analogue bass and oddball vocal samples - before serving up the hip-swinging, sub-heavy, sax-laden bump of KenLou's 'Lost I'M Ready (Sax Dub)'. Over on the second slab of wax, 'Virus Ruff Mutes' is a locked-in slab of house hedonism marked out by a tight, looped organ stab, while 'KenLou' thump recalls the inspired, jazz-dance-friendly, Latin-tinged brilliance of 'The Nervous Track', one of their most admired cuts.

Review: If you don't have love for Rahsaan then you don't have love for life. The American is a veteran of the edit scene and someone who can flip any joint into a joyous groove. Here, Hot Biscuit have assembled a limited double 12" that brings together some of his best 'Disco Edits, Versions & Dubs." 'Big Bisou' opens up with a jumble of Afro drums and loose limbed rhythms, 'Mamoe Lowe' then has tribal vocal chants and raw percussive energy, and 'Preto Velho' then brings a little more laid back soul to the party. '77' is a funky disco strider and 'Secondo' closes with some hard assed funk.

Review: A dystopian barrage of mechanoid electro soundscapes comes courtesy of Silicon Scally, a new, scathing alias alias of rather legendary UK music producer Carl Finlow, best known as 20:20 Vision. Inspired by the oncoming anxiety of a technological hell (trust us, we all feel it, Carl), it's either join the AI death cult or die, as a straight 60+ minutes of generative electro stabbery and post-neural warpings make the entire project sound like a supernatural server processing vast numeric quantities of infectious bytes.

Review: It's hard to over emphasise the role Timmy Regisford has played in the evolution of the New York house sound. The records he made with the late Boyd Jarvis in the mid 1980s paved the way for what became known as 'garage-house', and in the decades since he's released countless classic cuts and full-length excursions. On Source of House, he offers his take on Afro-house, combining authentic vocals, percussion and instrumentation with electronic rhythms, sun-splashed synth sounds, immersive chords and tech-tinged basslines. It's a brilliantly produced collection all told, with the multiple highlights including the summery deep house bounce of 'Good Morning', the auto-tune-sporting Afro-house-futurism of 'Angeke', the string-laden, Afro-disco-tinged 'Blalmam', and the warm, emotion-rich 'Track 38'.

Review: On this second, more expansive sampler for his forthcoming album Spaces & Places, Kerri Chandler treats us to tracks inspired by - and by the wonders of mobile recording technology, produced inside - clubs including Dublin's District 8, Glasgow institution Sub Club, Lux of Lisbon and NYC's Output. Of course, the standard is uniformly high throughout - it's classic Chandler from start to finish - but our picks of a very fine bunch include the soulful piano house shimmer of 'Change Your Mind', the thrusting, bass-heavy pump of 'Subbie (Rattle The Subbie Mix)', the effortlessly slick and soulful 'Tenacity (Full Vocal Mix)' and the ludicrously sub-heavy snap of 'See The Light (Dub)'. To borrow an old cliche, this is very much, 'all killer, no filler'.

Review: Kerri Chander's sound is so unique it almost deserves its only genre. He brings more musicality to house than almost anyone and for that reason is often called the Stevie Wonder of the genre. His latest album is a real labour of love that saw him write each of the tunes on the very dance floor of the clubs that are mentioned in each title. In some cases, he used found sounds, calculated the delay of kicks off a wall to phase them through a mix and even record himself playing on a green room piano at Printworks to use in the final tune. It might be the best album of his career and a selection of the tunes from it make it onto this third essential sampler.

Review: Polish beatmaker Shed has long been a darling of the European underground. His ability to craft textural loops and work them into potent, catchy, emotive but stripped back bangers is second to none. He has done so under various guises including WAX, but adopts his most famous moniker for this new double 12" on The Final Experiment. 'The 030 Files' offers eight brutalist breakbeat beauties that jerk your body into action, hook in your brain with their neat little motifs and make your hairs stand on end with the fizzing nature of the synths. Pure dancefloor dynamite as ever.

Review: Relative newcomers Infradisco blend a Balearic sound of disco and house for the Italian label Archeo Recordings. Aqua Cheta is a blend of proper electronic examples of Balearic and chill out influences. 'Caduca' (Hear & Now remix) is ideal for the late-night scene with a blend a perfect blend of 80s and 90s but still sounding futuristic. Manu Archeo's remix of 'Dulcis' is a beautiful laid back downtempo jam that shimmers like a hazy day on the beach. We think you will like the organic and mystical 'Fluminea' as well. This EP couldn't finish any better than on the ambient tip with a soul warming float on the marina remix by Ocean Moon. Fans of Balearic, Cafe Del Mar and chill out music will treasure this EP no doubt. This 12" comes with a CD as well.

Review: This double 12" compilation between Brazilian duo Stekke and producer and DJ Max Underson is a perfect marriage between the emotional aesthetic background of Underson's previous works and the precise floor-filling formula that Stekke has devised. The minimal composition is at the crossroads between deep, acid and tech house, with the wet basslines of 'The Messenger' being paired with ritualistic sub-bass lines culminating in house heaven. A real highlight on this release is side 4's 'Guidance', a smooth, grooving track that goes to show that house tracks don't always have to be cramped to the brim. The negative space used in these tracks, and the way it's used, is an art. Not to turn a blind eye to the two unique remixes on the compilation either, which take tracks to new heights thanks to the abstract re-imaginings by XDB and Melchior Productions Ltd. Universal Law is a schooling in the ways of minimal house, take notes.

Review: Tucked away on Louie Vega's fantastic - and vast - Expansions in the NYC album were a handful of tributes to disco legends Patrick Adams and Larry Levan. This double-pack brings those tributes to the floor. Vega opens with his Elements of Live band cover of Sine's Patrick Adams-produced 1978 B-side 'Chimi', turning the four-minute cut into a driving-but-bouncy, near 14-minute disco epic rich in restless bass, attractive vibraphone solos and spacey synths. On 'Change Your Mind', which is presented in both full vocal and instrumental forms, Vega recruits the voice of the Peech Boys, Bernard Fowler, and turns down a sparse, heavily electronic workout reminiscent of Larry Levan's early '80s mixes. It's genuinely great, as is the DJ Spinna-sporting, hybrid disco/organic house cover of Adams' classic 'Atmosphere Strut'. In a word: essential!

Review: Electro is a style with an infinite number of sub-genres and for fans of the more raw, industrial and textural stuff then this is an EP for you. It's a split between Umwelt and Zeta Reticula, who goes first with a brilliant brace on the a-side. 'The Fate Of The Ship Unknown' is a storytelling track that journeys through an intergalactic space battle as lasers fly by at all angles. 'Documented Contact' is slightly deeper, with more resonant bass and percolating arps that are packed with intrigue. On the flip, Umwelt's 'Hyperspace' is all visceral lines, snapping kick and hi combos and sleazy synth that fires every synapse in your brain. 'Earth To Unknown' closes out in high speed and coruscated fashion for maximum dancefloor impact.

Review: Mysticism's Dubplate series has got a couple of great drops lined up at the moment and this is one of them - a boule pack from German digidub pioneers TVS aka Trance Vision Steppers. This was a project that never made it out of the studio but still cooked up some brilliant sounds, which in the case of this collection come from their earlier period between 1995 - 1999, all of which land on vinyl for the first time here. Fans of Adrian Sherwood, Dennis Bovell and Mad Professor will be head over heels of these dub delights - they are deep and atmospheric, with lush ambient pads, downtempo vocals and stoner synths next to more twisted rhythms.

Review: Prolific Brooklyn artist and exciting new school talent Your Old Droog aka Dmitry Kutsenko is a vital presence in the modern hip-hop landscape and has been involved with several well-regarded projects. This already critically acclaimed Yodney Dangerfield album on Mongoloid Banks is the latest and it comes with fresh beats by top producers Nicholas Craven, SadhuGold, Lee Scott, and Jonwayne. It is a fine body of work with the physical-only bonus track 'Metal Face Medley' which is a live performance montage that pays homage to the late great rap don MF DOOM.

Review: Here comes a fresh 12" containing four remixes of the song 'Call A Wave' by Malcolm McLaren and The Bootzilla Orchestra. The original was released in 1989 as part of McLaren's album Waltz Darling, which was an early example of the 'collaborative studio album' popular at the time, and fused classical music with elements of then-contemporary dance music styles, such as his brand of downtempo-ish post-punk / industrial - a true McLaren mode. The newer remixes that feature here come from the likes of DFC and Mark Moore and William Orbit (responsible for the Orbital mix rather than the Hartnoll brothers) and are no less sludgey, Balearic and chuggy as the original loom-bird-laden track. Two new stripped-back versions also appear.

Review: The Blessed Madonna has remixed Dua Lipa's 'Levitating' featuring Missy Elliott and Madonna. This is the first track from 'Club Future Nostalgia', an entirely remixed version of Dua Lipa's global #1 album "Future Nostalgia", created in collaboration with The Blessed Madonna.

Review: Tech house is an unfairly maligned genre. While criticisms of the blandness of the sound might hold weight for much of the stuff released today, the same simply can't be said for the work of Terry Francis, who helped pioneer its sound. All & All is a new series, this one documenting Francis' contributions to the underground, with many of the tracks appearing on it made during the period in which he was a resident DJ at London's Fabric. As you can hear, 'tech house' at the origin point, as propagated by Francis, was much dreamier - closer to its cousin, deep house. And on cuts like 'How Can Something', you can really hear where the received 'dreaminess' of house and the uptempo, industrial pulse of techno, converged.

Review: Owhaaou features four cuts taken from the incredibly hard-to-find and obscure Metamorphose album that was released back in 1984 by this legendary Benin soul star. He blends rare Afrofunk with digital soul as evidenced by the recent reissue of Dans le Tchink System. Now this label celebrates his work once more with this futuristic and expansive new record which was recorded on 24 analogue track channels with skilled backing musicians such as Hilaire Penda on bass, Poly Rythmo de Cotonou's Daniel Bentho and more. The title track is a big disco party starter then there are more sombre moods on 'Magnifiec' and a silky edit of 'Zemidjan' before 'Mi Tchinker' gets that booty shaking.

Review: Guangzhou, China-based artist and DJ Cola Ran tune sin to her inner reflections and global travel experiences when making music. On her debut EP she taps int the human experience to tell the tale of society's development over the years and blends traditional Asian and African instruments with modern electronics, field recordings and vocals to do so. It's a fulsome ambient, Balearic and downtempo brew with a gorgeous sense of melody and spirituality that offers a soothing escape. 'Riot On The Hush' is a lush tapestry of hand drums and xylophone-like sounds that rise and fall like a sea current, 'Outta Space' is the same vibe but with a futuristic cosmic twist. These are two of many highlights.

Review: During the 1990s, there were few techno producers in Spain who were quite as prolific - or successful, for that matter - as Alex Martin. This superb double-pack delivers proof of the Barcelona-based artist's impressive early form by gathering together some of the best cuts he released between '94 and '98 under a variety of aliases, most notably Sideral and The Fat DB. Interestingly, there's plenty of variety to be found within the collected cuts, with sparkling sci-fi ambient ('Elipse') and deep, shuffling IDM (the acid-flecked brilliance of 'Mare Nostrum' and 'Butterly') nestling side by side with deep techno ('I Wanna Look at the Stars'), ragged futurist acid ('Incognita'), intergalactic techno ('Planetarium') and even cuts inspired by the soul, bass-weight and shuffle of the then emerging UK garage sound ('Can Make It').

Review: There is a load of Jay Tripwire newness around at the moment and some of it is from his back catalogue and some of it is all new. Here the longtime minimal mainstay and Canadian scene-pioneer serves up a multi-volume collection of cult tracks of his from the early 2000s. They have a west coast tech house sound and are still future in design. The likes of Villalbos have long been banging these and they sit well with the days current underground sound. Acid, dub, tech, electronic soul and more all colour the grooves.

Review: Limited edition 12" dedicated to the Neve A Maggio song flavoured with four remixes. Three from Mushrooms Project and one with a 90's house style by Deep88. Wrapped in elegant electronics and an international flavour, Sara's voice recounts the unusual in these days characterized by strong anomalies and cold solitude. Like when it snows in May, like when you want to pick a rose and instead find yourself blinded by a white reflection, completely out of place. Yet there is life, under that white; breath, pulsation, a rhythm that presses and makes you dance: a song that drags you away from a daily life troubled by extraordinary events, which become intimate and confidential, but still unique, like every single snowflake.

Archeo Recordings is a reissue record label that regenerates old, lost, obscure and forgotten rare gems of mostly Italian music but also all over the world of the 70s, 80s and 90s.
All releases are licensed audio tracks re-mastered in their original form with sleeves recreated for today but all based on the original images. Archeo would like to make the music available to a wider audience of collectors, DJs, music lovers of a forgotten time.

Review: After he made such an impact with his debut EP in 2018, Compton-based hip-house hero Channel Tres made good on his burgeoning reputation with his second release the year after. Black Moses might nod to Isaac Hayes, but there's nothing throwback about the sound as Tres rides all kinds of sparkling fresh electronic beats with a focus on deep house. He was also able to confirm his burgeoning reputation in the scene with a notable guest spot from JPEGMAFIA on the low slung title track. There's just so much swag to this record, it's going to make you and everyone in a square mile get loose, wherever you drop it.

Review: The Master at Work that is Louie Vega has been a music-making machine all his life but in recent years has continued to reach new heights with various different projects. Here he is back on regular label Nervous with various different versions of his tunes 'Joy Universal' and 'Igobolo.' 'Joy Universal' (feat Two Soul Fusion) is classic Vega - soulful house music awash with Latin influences, loose-limbed percussion and funky basslines. And that template is tweaked over the ensuing tunes, with glorious pianos, jazzy grooves and tropical rhythms all making for a fine EP.

Review: Guidance continues to celebrate the often-overlooked musical life and legacy of the late, great Dana Kelley AKA DKMA with a third compilation of cuts rescued from rediscovered DATs of unreleased recordings. There's naturally plenty to enjoy 'Boston Boy Volume 3', from the starry, shuffling, loose-limbed warmth of opener 'Savages' and the dense, tribal-influenced deep house hedonism of 'Deconstruct', to the raw, sub-heavy techno of 'Wolfen', the jazzy and boompty-influenced bounce of 'Twilight' and the deeply hazy, dubbed-out wonder that is 'Luv 'n' Pain', where echoing chords and deep sub-bass provide a platform for all manner of percussive insanity.

Review: Kalita Records are proud and honoured to announce the first ever official reissue of the four choice tracks from Randolph Baker's privately pressed sought-after 1982 disco album 'Reaching For The Stars', plus an unreleased instrumental take of 'Party Life' sourced from the original 24-track analogue master tapes.

Originally recorded at Jim Morris and Rick Miller's Tampa-based Morrisound Studios, 'Getting Next To You' features both a mixture of both local Florida talent plus jazz superstar Nat Adderley and bassist John Lamb at their finest. Originally pressed in a limited run of just one-thousand copies, with no distribution and most copies being sold in the local city and on Randolph's own merchandise table at the back of live gigs, original copies have long been sought-after by both collectors and DJs alike, acknowledged as a true grail and masterpiece in the disco scene and deservedly demanding extortionate figures to those lucky enough to find their own.

Here, in collaboration with Randolph, Kalita Records have chosen to re-release the four choice tracks from the album: 'Getting Next To You', 'Jazzman', 'Callin' Me' and 'Party Life'. The former is an in-demand horn and chant-filled disco masterpiece, which, as Randolph explains, concerns unity and "everyone on the same level in other words, everyone just loving life". It is arguably the song that Randolph is most well-known for in the disco and funk scene and perfect for the modern discerning dance floor. 'Jazzman' is an instrumental track with prominent trumpet and saxophone solos working with funky basslines to produce a truly great jazz-funk groove. It was "a tribute to Nat Adderley and Duke Ellington's bass player, John Lamb, for being so generous and saying yes to the project". 'Callin' Me' is a soulful disco number featuring the lead vocals of Laurie Erickson and is "about being on the road and ensuring loved ones that you will always come back home no matter what. It was like a promise to ensure loved ones they didn't have to worry". Lastly, 'Party Life' is a joyous disco track with a strong funk bassline and horns. As Randolph recalls, it "was the joy like after an actor finishes a movie. There was nothing but joy. It's finished; let's celebrate big time. Where everyone in the studio yelled at the top of their lungs - The End!" Here, with access to the 24-track master tapes we have been able to include the original version plus an unreleased instrumental take, allowing us to focus on the infectious bassline and make it even more ready for the modern dance floor.

Accompanied by extensive interview-based liner notes and never-before-seen photos.