Juno Recommends Minimal / Tech House Best of 2019

Review: Championed by Richie Hawtin & Ricardo Villalobos (featured on his Cocoon mix CD 'Taka Taka') the A-Side is armed with a highly infectious melody, beefed up with big, bouncy funky bassline. The B-side has trippy hypnotic sounds that echo in & out of the fluid melodies.

Review: Madonna, Depeche Mode and Kelis - what do East End Edits have in store for us next? This seventh instalment harks back to the charming deep jazzy house of their inaugural release - think of the legendary St. Germain and that should give you a fairly good idea. The track's smoky, late night jazz bar vibe is complemented by a rolling bass and swinging rhythms that should appeal to the likes of Rhadoo or Petre Inspirescu - legends of the Romanian scene who themselves have lent their deft hand to the French producer's work as remixers in the past, too.

Review: The Botanic Minds Sunset Series maintains a lovely sense of mystery with its uncredited artists and rock solid concept - there's something mystical about that sunset dancefloor moment which all four tracks on this 12" capture perfectly. There's a little whiff of trance in the mix, but it's delivered in an elegant and poised context, offset by sleek house grooves and peppered with just the right amount of psychedelic sound design to send the mind spiraling skywards. After a day kicking up the dust on a sandy beach or sweaty terrace, this is just the balm you need to bring on the dusk.

Review: To date we've not been treated to a solo outing from Lazare Hoche - he's most commonly spotted alongside fellow deep house operative Malin Genie, but now he's going it alone with two cuts of assured groovers suited to the hazier hours of a 4/4 throwdown. "Time Guard" is a swooning beauty of a track buoyed by gorgeous synth strings and a nagging groove. "Maths" is a more forthright, club-focused affair that places all the emphasis on sharp, funked up drum machine beats, but there's still a chill in the air that keeps the track firmly rooted in the deep end.

Review: REPRESS ALERT: Sideway Invisibility Theory are already well versed in the Romanian minimal scene both individually and as a duo - on top of their releases on Do Easy and Amphia, Cristi Cons and Vlad Caia represent two of the most prolific operators in the second wave of Bucharest-based dance music. With a mammoth wedge of music delivered to Sushitech in the form of two double packs entitled Invisibility Chapter I & II, this single serves as a pint-sized distillation of those records for the DJs with less time on their hands. "Alternate" is right at home on Sushitech, all elegant beat programming and huge, billowing clouds of dub chord. Label regular Steve O' Sullivan is right at home on such smoky ground, although his remix on the B-side blows the vapour away to deliver a tightly woven tool for the heads down crowd.

Review: UK tech house hero Burnski has been serving up some serious heat of late under the Instinct alias, channelling that old school UK vibe of drum & bass, speed garage and 2-step. His exploration into these styles bring about this sixth instalment of his eponymous series with 3 cuts set to cause havoc on dancefloors this year. A side cut "Overthrow" rides on a slick tech house groove before moving into a swing-fuelled rhythm and razor-sharp sub-bass and it's business as usual. On the flip, shadowy stepper "Phased" fuses Artful Dodger's classic swagger with the dark sci-fi aesthetic of Ed Rush & Optical. Finally, put your lighters up for the furious junglist roller that is "Free Life".

Review: The Beeyou label strikes ahead with its third release, continuing to champion warm, musical deep house from a range of emergent producers. XHZ makes a debut appearance here with the epic "Jazz 2 Jazz", which progresses through a woozy nocturnal mood to wind up in an effervescent, Rhodes-soaked finale. Jake Flory keeps things simmering on the tracky but engaging "14th Groove", before following up with the effortlessly cool chord drops of "Distress". With melodious invention at its heart and the needs of the dancefloor well catered for, the Beeyou crew have delivered another essential package for discerning spinners.

Review: More from single-sided specialists EEE, a shadowy crew that specializes in sneaky contemporary club reworks of well-known tracks (many of which are, in their original form, about as dancefloor focused as your average miserable indie band or veteran cabaret crooner). What's on offer this time round is a heavily electronic tech-house groove - all Romanian style beats and bubbling, mind-altering synth notes - onto which is laid cut-up snippets from a famous old blues cut that's previously been sampled on a club cut to great effect. While the vocal does sit slightly awkwardly at times, there's no denying the heaviness or effectiveness of EEE's track. In other words, it's another winner from tech-house's most shadowy crew.

Review: Ion Ludwig is a leading light in contemporary minimal house, able to elicit fresh approaches from a well-worn club music template. He lands back on Baby Ford's Trelik label with a chunky double pack of beautifully crafted rollers for the stripped down dance, leading in with the subliminal murmurs of "Fall Answers" and following it up with the incredibly groovy, bass-led "Modern Missing Mood". "Le Imagen" gets into a more wriggling, crafty configuration, while "Felt Like Klariny Space" lets trippy daubs of melody take centre stage. "Sparse Hypnotimes" does what it says on the tin, simmering down to a mellow, dubby haze of blue-hued keys and a slither of a beat.

Review: Another single-sided sizzler from the Digwah camp, whose irregular tech-house reworks of well-loved old cuts are rarely less than excellent. This time round, they've turned their attention to a sprightly, memorable chunk of '80s soul - an American club cut of the period that has been re-edited numerous times by disco diggers. The Digwah version, though, is an almost complete overhaul; while snippets of the original version's vocals and guitars are present in the mix, they largely play second fiddle to chunky tech-house beats and a bold, huggable bassline that propels the revision forward towards peak-time dancefloors. It's decent and scintillating like most Digwah remixes.

Review: Sasha has done well to re-establish himself with the next generation, and its largely because of the work he puts into his Last Night On Earth label. A haven for producers who like emotionally stripping, melodic sounds, this latest VA package delves into the previously digital-only archives. The boss himself kicks things off with a collab with La Fleur built on a wavy baseline and crisp house rhythm. Fur Coat keep things more mysterious with "Babel" while Hunter/Game keep you in suspense throughout the many melodic and harmonica layers of "Canyons". Jon Da Silva & Jozef K close things down in more purposeful fashion.

Review: Following releases from Huerta, Mandar and Makcim & Levi last year, Oscillat kicks off 2019 with an assured, brooding club 12" from long-serving producer Matthew Dekay.
Since surfacing in 2001, Dutch producer Dekay has put out a formidable body of work under a variety of aliases and in collaboration with producers including Lee Burridge and Maher Daniel. His sultry tech house approach has graced labels as highly regarded as Innervisions, Cecille, Aras and Maeve, and now he comes to Oscillat with "Spellbound," a track that finds him diving deeper than ever before into hypnotic, swinging rhythms loaded with atmosphere and longing.
On the B side, Oscillat bosses Mandar (Lazare Hoche, Malin Genie and Samuel Andre Madsen) take Dekay's original and inject it with an infectious peak time energy, creating a straight-up, acid-flecked workout that sits in neat contrast with the immersive shuffle of the original.

Review: With a history that stretches back to the turn-of-the-90s, Ivan Iacobucci is one of the Italian scene's most storied producers. He's released on all manner of acclaimed imprints over the years - UMM, Calypso Records, Holic Trax and Nite Grooves included - and here makes his bow on another, Berlin staple Perlon. There's plenty of subtle variety across the EP, with Iacobucci leisurely strolling between funk-fuelled lo-fi tech-house (the spacey "Logic Solution"), high-tempo, Autechre-inspired IDM-funk ("Platinum Booth"), wonky, Villalobos-style early morning insanity (the bonkers but brilliant "Magic Tribulation") and analogue-rich, off-kilter tech-house ("Android").

Review: Sushitech's sub label Pariter has already released timeless records from the likes of Delano Smith, Steve O'Sullivan, Baby Ford and Norm Talley to name a few and this new release of the Romanian group Lisiere Collectif is no exception!

Unknown Credentials is a project of 5 tracks released on 2 single records. A sides on both parts are absolutely massive, acid lines and hypnotic chords peak time tracks that will shake any proper sound system with some serious bass extension! B sides are deeper and have more modern, fresh electroish vibe that we love!

Fans of Ricardo Villalobos & Craig Richards b2b sets are going to find it gold! Don't sleep!!

Review: Euphoria Records has a legacy that reaches back to the mid-90s and releases from artists such as Omni A.M. and Mark Ambrose. Now the label is back in action with some killer minimal house fare from emergent Maltese talent Mato. This new single kicks off with the sophisticated swing of "Gozo Carnival", which capitalizes on an economical approach to the arrangement to devastating effect. "Euphoria Jamz" is a busier production with layers of wriggling synths bouncing around another shuffled beat. "Where's The Chutney?" keeps things rubbery and freaky, with the jack level up high and the tweaked out sounds plentiful in the mix, rounding out a distinctive and infectiously fun club 12".

Review: There's something brilliantly unfussy and matter-or-fact about Matthew Farrow's latest outing as Kepler, which marks his first appearance on no nonsense Mulen sub-label Hoarder. The four collected cuts are subtly varied and all aimed squarely at the dancefloor, with Farrow striking a near perfect balance between rolling dancefloor hypnotism, funk-fuelled glitch-house and bottom-heavy peak-time intent. We're particularly enjoying the spacey and ultra-deep swing of "Self Hypnosis" and the weighty, stripped-back pump of opener "Few Days' - a track built around little more than fluid sub-bass, crunchy drums and metallic electronic riffs - but the organ-powered, U.S garage-influenced tech-house bump of "French Lessons" is not far behind.

Review: Lauren Lo Sung's star continues to rise as the talented minimal house producer and DJ partners up with the mighty Lazare Hoche. This four track EP is packed with bombs, from the shimmering, metallic deep house finery of "Running" to the cheeky acid wriggle of "Dusty Pink". Things take a darker, deeper turn on the fierce "Fixate," and then lift into fluttering after hours tones for the sublime and ever so slightly trippy "Lara's Dub". Now firmly entrenched in the cut and thrust of the European minimal house scene, Lo Sung's talents spill out in abundance on this assured pack of highly workable and versatile floor filling 4/4 burners.

Review: The latest compilation 12" from Dungeon Meat brings together a heavyweight cast for a trip into the seedy underbelly of tech house. Leading the charge is Honey Dijon, who's on tough and heavy-grooving form with the low-end pulsing pump of "Blue Sky". Desert Sound Colony shakes things up with a quirky, bumping sample juggler in "Where Are Ya?" - calling to mind the madcap antics of Jacob London but less goofy and more mean tempered. Danielle Temperilli takes cues from UK garage for the crooked 2-step freakery of "Rattlesnake" - a wild card deep cut for the heads to get quizzical to.

Review: Kiwi brothers Chaos In The CBD return to Mule Musiq with their third EP for the long running Japanese label. They are in fine form throughout, offering up cuts that combine great ideas and intriguing musical motifs with just the right amount of serious dancefloor grunt. They're in full on saucer-eyed mode on A-side "Hydrate", a breakbeat-sporting deep house roller whose extended ambient intro, swirling chords, whispered vocal samples, gentle acid lines and early '90s U.S garage stabs combine to create a suitably loved-up vibe. Flipside "Searching For Signal" is similarly inclined but sounds a touch more psychedelic, with trance-inducing electronics and heady chord sequences catching the ear above another shuffling breakbeat-driven groove.

Review: The sixth installment on Malin Genie's self-titled label welcomes Will & Ink resident Yaleesa Hall into the fold. Regular collaborators Malin and Yaleesa have turned out plenty of joint 12"s in the past on Will & Ink and this very label, and they sound more comfortable and sonically aligned than ever on this mighty record. There's no messing with "Alpha Decay," a loose and lysergic dubby techno workout. "Tachyon" orbits a similar soundworld, but shears the fat away for a minimal palette that sounds powerful echoing around the ample space in the mix. "Muck" slips into freaky after hours house territory, and "Stocha" drops a massive Basic Channel dub techno chord around a whisper of a beat to devastating effect.

Review: The Mandar dream team of Lazare Hoche, Malin Genie and S.A.M revisit "Poisoned Words" with a double dose of remixes from none other than Ricardo Villalobos. The minimal overlord lives up to expectations on both flips of the original track, needling into the tiniest sonic details and holding down an insistent groove that will sit beautifully in the mix. The A side features a simmering version that revels in wriggling sound design with ample space to flex and mutate, while the B side stretches out into a quintessential Villalobos wormhole of a remix. Unmissable sonics from one of the scene's true legends.

Review: Aesthetic got off to a strong start with a various artist release from rising talents Nick Beringer, Niko Maxen, Stevn.aint.levn and Sy. Now they return with a solo release from LOY, who's previously been spotted on labels like Minim and Laate. You can expect sleek and refined minimal house grooves of the highest order, warm and dubby but equally honed for the more energetic hours of the party. "Dubdiver" is especially immersive with its shimmering ripples of brain-massaging melodic content, while "Blind Trip" takes things in a more brooding, emotive direction for duskier moments in the midst of the endless house shuffle.

Review: Vinyl Speed Adjust have conquered a lot of labels in their time, ranging from BodyParts to Pressure Traxx, Visionquest to Pleasure Zone. Representing a different twist on the Romanian minimal sound, the pairing of Andrei Predoi & Claudiu-Eduard Balan now find themselves on Constant Sound dropping the subtly psychedelic tech house trip out, "Semantic Expressions". As if the trance-inducing original wasn't enough, we're also treated to gold-standard remixes from Mike Shannon and DoubtingThomas, both of whom bring their glittering score cards in the minimal fraternity to two distinct but complementary versions of Vinyl Speed Adjust's track.

Review: Brawther returns to one of the stand out tracks from last year's "Transient States" LP and hands it over to a couple of more-than-capable remixers. "Jaxx Freaxx" becomes an irresistibly funky bumper in the hands of Fumiya Tanaka, whose "My Jaxx" version sounds like it would be right at home in the midst of a lengthy Panorama Bar session. Zweizig follows up on his recent "Rhythm Tension" 12" for Negentropy with a sublime, subtle twist on "Jaxx Freaxx" that matches swinging micro house with dubby FX ripples that sound like they were deployed with the after party in mind.