SECRETSUNDAZE レコード& CD

Review: The third volume in the Dance 2017 series is notable for featuring the first collaborative production from Giles Smith and James Priestley under the Secretsundaze moniker. Given that they delivered their first combined mix CD some ten years ago, "Motorway" has been a long time coming. It's also rather good, offering a hypnotic and wide-eyed blend of urgent, 128 BPM percussion, car horn style synth stabs, heavy bass and swirling string loops. It's not exactly Kraftwerk's "Autobahn" for the tech-house generation, but we sense the Robots would approve. Less surprising is Palm Trax's "Outflight", a positive and melodious chunk of synthesizer-heavy deep house goodness full of new age melodies, darting synth-bass and crunchy drum machine hits.

Review: Giles Smith and James Priestley are back under their Secretsundaze moniker for some top-shelf machine wranglings. There's a nervy edge to "Devious", which creates a dense sound using gnarly monosynth bass, spacious reverbed bleeps and brittle drums. "Over The Edge" heads outwards rather than inwards with rousing vocal loops colliding with plush melodic phrases and another knotty beat, while "Drifting" plays on classic 90s downtempo techno through a fog of lo-fi charm. You can sense the grit and invention that's been rubbed into these tracks, making them reach beyond straightforward club music to something altogether more intriguing.

Review: Over the last 18 months, Secretsundaze duo Giles Smith and James Priestley have proved adept at delivering house records that refuse to kowtow to convention. Their latest effort, "Gigantic Impossibly Large", is a fantastic example of this, with each of the pair's four mixes offering a noticeably different vibe. The EP-opening "10AM Tripp" version is a mid-tempo shuffler full of loose-limbed drum fills, classic ambient house melodies and glassy-eyed spoken word samples, while the "NYC Dub" re-imagines the cut as a cross between Raze's "Break 4 Love" and one of Bobby Konders deep and breezy Nu Groove-era cuts. The "OG Version" fuses ambient chords and hypnotic dub disco drums, and the "B2 Jam" interpretation is horizontal head music of the highest order.

Review: Giles Smith and James Priestley have left an indelible mark on house and techno culture in the UK, not least thanks to their fabled Secretsundaze parties. These days they're taking that iconic stamp into the studio, and following up on strong turns for Mule Musiq and Phonica last year they're finally dropping a full length EP on their own label. The quality is as high as you would expect, from spicy, snarling fire starter "Mezcal" to the transcendental swirl of "Stand Up". On the B side, "Testing" takes things a little deeper with a heady stomp and a tricky disposition that will satisfy all the selectors.

Review: Gilles Smith and James Priestley seem to be devoting far more of their time to music production. This excellent outing on Mule Musiq is their second single of 2018 following a solid debut on Phonica Records earlier in the year. In its' A-side "House Pass" form, "Cyber" is a deliciously saucer-eyed and loved-up affair where dizzyingly positive synthesizer motifs wrap themselves around a chunky bassline and bouncy, No Smoke style drums. Over on side B, Smith and Priestley offer up two alternative interpretations: the trippy, techno-tinged early morning psychedelic hypnotism of the "Cosmic Slide" version, and the beat-less bliss of the "Ambient Sax Version", which further explores the track's Italian dream house influences.

Review: James Priestley and Giles Smith are stalwarts of the London scene (and the duo behind the legendary Secretsundaze parties) and make a rare release outside of their eponymous imprint - appearing for local institution Phonica here. "Still Hope" sees them collaborate with Anthony Anaxagorou, a British born Cypriot award winning poet and essayist. His powerful vocal delivery accompanies the duo's emotive exploration in deepness. They deliver a remix up next in the form of the Secretsundaze Poems In The Heart Floor version, which goes for a second wave Detroit style of vibe. Speaking of which, the Motor City's favorite son Wajeed takes over the B side with two magnificent remixes. The Waajeed Detroit Hardcore dub goes for a massive Panorama Bar style vibe, while the Waajeed Searching dub goes into deeper and more evocative territory for the late night.

Review: Secretsundaze haven't been known for their re-edits much in the past, but that's about to change with this choice new 12". On one side, the label bosses James Priestley and Giles Smith take a tender touch to "Ghana Nila", a little-known spiritual originating in a Californian ashram. Ge-ology is ready to go on the flip, bringing his distinctive MPC funk to Herbie Mann's "Stomp Your Feet" and teasing even more juice out of this already abundant floor burner from the late '70s. From movement meditation to effervescent energy, this record has a spectrum of feelings covered in two edits that sound genuinely fresh and inspired.