Elevation (Tommy Musto Zero Hour vocal mix) (7:04)
Review: Last summer, Soul Clap Records giddily introduced their first ever singings from the UK, 2Fox, via digital-only vocal house number 'Elevation'. Nine months on, that track has finally made it onto wax, accompanied by the best remixes from the expansive digital EP. In its original extended mix form (A2), the track is a sublime slab of warm, tactile, nostalgic and gospel-tinged deep house excellence with superb lead vocals by Laville. Masters at Work man and all-round NYC great Louie Vega delivers a fantastic, lightly tooled-up soulful house take to kick off the EP, label bosses Soul Clap add tech-house style synths and attractive electronics aplenty, and New York veteran Tommy Musto leans further into 'Calling Your Name' style gospel-house joy.
Review: The Fruit Medley series has been hella juicy so far so we're glad another edition is ripe and ready for picking to kick off the label's 2025 season. This one features all newcomers starting with Cromie's 'Timereite', a chubby and clubby tech pumper with full throttle rhythms. Wilba's 'New Recipes' has lush synth smears over grinding low ends that echo early West Coast tech, and Darren Roach then gets a little deeper on the percolating 'Brettski Colectski'. Lazer Man's 'Time Of Ghosts' closes down with a mid-tempo, off-kilter house cut with steely drums and distant alien activity.
Review: Two more battle weapons handpicked from the eponymous UK armoury. Label motto ("You want this party started, right?!") and A-cut refrain ("la-di-da-di, we like to party"), converge in perfect sync here on this latest 7": the obverse samples Doug E Fresh & Slick Rick's 1985 mover, peppering slight but bright brasses over a punctuated beat mix. 'Tambou' on the B-side honours a historic canonical Swizz Beatz crunk bit with a re-edit of 'Tambourine', produced and released in 2006 for blase partystarter Eve.
Review: Chicago's Tied label rolls out a 17th release as good as all the previous ones, this time with a four-track various artists EP that showcases emerging talents from deep, spacey electronic realms. Just_Me's 'Laser Brane' launches the journey with electro-funk propulsion, while Lumieux's 'In Your Space... It's Me In Space' drifts into cosmic grooves and ambient textures. On the B-side, Constratti's meticulously crafted 'Bind' delivers intricate synth delays and solid rhythms that capture the feeling of interstellar motion. Label head Max Jacobson and 97 Till close with 'Orion,' a break-infused and celestial house cut built for late-night floors.
Review: Island Beats welcome the return of Dani Labb for his second release 'Inclementia', converging sonic memory and dystopian fiction: the DJ and producer from Rio Negra culls his inspirations from the the many grim realms glimpsed in the video games that defined his youth, daubing a claustrophobic, hard-acid breaks pixel painting. Though the game realms aren't named, we're hearing hellish sonic level design in this one, be that in the Half Life security breach voices of 'Locked Away' or the dungeon crawling Doom acid of 'Hijack'.
Review: Misty Lane is vocalist Elaine Desjardins, and she worked with producers Michel Bibeau and Ralph Mashats in the mid-80s. Two tunes from that time, 'Energy' and 'Controle', brim with charm and analogue warmth all these years later as they get served up in all their quirky synth-pop style with unmistakable Quebecois flair via Dark Entries. The opener pulses with snappy Roland TR-808 beats and proto-house vibes carried by Desjardins' refreshingly unpolished vocals, while 'Controle' slows things down into a tropical mid-tempo groove that echoes the atmosphere of Junior Byron's 'Dance to the Music.' This reissue is a delight for lovers of Italo, Canadian disco and eccentric synth pop.
Review: 'Devant Le Miroir' ('In Front Of The Mirror') kicks off an egoistically inclined four-track injection of glassy house music from Achse Germany. It's a wavy opening statement from the Berlin native Lcaise, whose return to vinyl releasing is a real treat, long following 2009's 'Gestosis'. Sharing two out of four grooves on the record, Lcaise commissions Silat Beksi to texturise his opening specular spectacular; Beksi convects the A1's feelin' itself with further catoptric phasings and frazzler textures. The other side is taken up by Polish newcomer Erdal Mauff, with 'Afterthought Sines' puling the best it can get from a widescreen mix made up of ultra-loud highs and vivid stabs, and Fedo producing a burblier, alien spaceship retake.
Review: Don Thigpen's artistic debut came under the pseudonym LEO, inspired by his zodiac sign and his desire to bring an edgy persona to his music. A familiar face behind many notable tracks from the Jackson area, Thigpen, along with his friend Sam Anderson, also recorded the highly sought-after 'Shirley Baby' on his CJR (Capitol Jackson Records) label. 'Fee Fi Fo Fum' marks LEO's electro-infused contribution to the 80s wave of computer culture; inviting parallels to Zapp & Roger's 'Computer Love,' the track humorously explores the idea of a computer falling in love with a woman, and the machine attempting to woo her through flashing the words "Fee Fi Fo Fum" on the screen. Limited to just 450 copies with a hand-made risograph sleeve, this is as authentic as early electro number can get; sodden in trigger pad swish and askew, circuit bent wonk.
Review: Tuff Cut / Late Nite Tuff Guy (Carmelo Bianchetti) has so far done well to dig out for himself a rather outre oeuvre, the Australian steadily supplying such head-turning edits as this since as far back as 2013. The seventh volume in this new iteration of the series comes in two parts, and brings two further soft disco inflammations: 'Fooled', a pre-coffee, rheumy Sister Sledge disco edit, and 'So Much Love', an unknown cut whose lyrics return plenty of red herrings on the 'ole search bar.
Live Or Die By Love (Eric Kupper instrumental remix) (5:36)
Review: Rooted in New York house traditions,Lovetempo is an exciting new band from Brooklyn that fuse deep house, disco and funk, driven by by former The Rapture man Mattie Safer's seasoned touch. The title track delivers a Chicago house gem with an uplifting, jazzy feel and an inspirational message. 'We Can Make It Happen' dials things down into a lounge-infused jam, balancing disco and house with a relaxed, breezy energy. 'Part-Time Love Affair' leans fully into funk, highlighting the band's tight musicianship and rhythmic flair. On Side B, Eric Kupper reworks 'Live Or Die By Love' into a dancefloor house cut, extracting vocal samples from the original and flipping them into a hypnotic hook. His instrumental remix strips it back further, focusing on groove and texture. With its mix of live band energy and classic house sensibilities, 'Live Or Die By Love' is a promising statement from Lovetempo.
Review: Amsterdam's Bordello a Parigi's ongoing Diamonds In The Night series has not only proved to be a reliable source of new - if authentically old sounding - Italo-disco, Hi-NRG and proto-Eurodance, but also a brilliant platform for new and up-and-coming artists. Volume seven in the series is another strong offering. It begins with the tops-off, melody-driven Hi-NRG joy of Tallac's 'Chemtrail Surfers' and concludes with the vocoder-heavy early morning dark bew wavce disco of 'Disco Homicide' by Hypersensitive. Sandwiched in between you'll find the tough, throbbing, strobe-lit and sweat-soaked hedonism of Luksek's 'Tropicale' and the Bobby Orlando and early Pet Shop Boys influenced excellence of 'That Moment' by Francesco Cascella.
Ramon Tapia - "Fear" (Dynamic Forces remix) (5:05)
Review: Netherlands techno titan Planet Rhythm goes full percussive gas giant on their latest V/A, 'Friction', a motorsport motivator full of accelerometric elan - one of several V/As to grace their revving catalogue in recent times. Ramon Tapia leads the motorcade with 'Friction', a stabbing aerator full of overtop claps and rims, while Louis Lp's 'Radioactivity' unsettles with its seething high ringing and affectively isolated chord-stab-melody. Deas' 'Hard Dreams' nods to the real, unshakeably material core of dreams, with its rancorous full-tone acids, while Ramon Topia closes with 'Fear', a restless, chord-throttling, hard trancey, speed demonic rally racer.
Review: Popularly known to fans as "Ice" - a rare case of hypocorism in colloquial fan band nicknaming - Strut Recordings document a rare record from the vaults of the luminary Lafayette Afro-Rock Band, one that is arguably the closest in their catalogue to the signature sound defining their earlier work. Marked by an especially complex funk rhythmology, this record was pressed contemporaneously with the infamous Soul Makossa and Malik sessions; but compared to their earlier works, Afro Agban pushes deeper into jazz-rock territory. 'Ozan Koukle' has espceially become a known but coveted missing link for turntable taxonomists, who'll thank their lucky stars for the fact that it is now available in full.
Review: Laibach and A/political present Alamut, a new, symphonic album inspired by Vladimir Bartol's 1938 novel of the same name. Recounting an 11th-century Persian tale - centered on the charismatic and enigmatic Hassan-i Sabbah, leader of the Nizari Ismailis and founder of the Order of Assassins - this is a shadowy, ninja-black-wax initiation into an esoteric order of spies. Laibach's work blends classical Persian poetry, minimalist orchestral textures, and industrial elements, reflecting both historical propaganda tactics and Bartol's critique of rising Fascism in 1930s Italy. Released on double vinyl and CD box set through Mute, the album was recorded in 2022 at a former Crusader castle in Ljubljana; it features the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra, Tehran's Human-Voice Ensemble, the Gallina Women's Choir, and the women's accordion orchestra AccordiOna, conducted by Navid Goharib.
Review: Dutchman Danny Wolfers aka Legowelt is one of the most prolific artists in the game. He has several aliases which all explore ambient, synth, house and techno, but this is his most well-known. Synths Below Sea Level is another singular long player packed with his signature machine-made sounds and vintage synth textures. There are intergalactic acid odysseys like 'A1200 The Valley Energy', brilliantly lo-fi deep house mediations like 'Maybe You See Them Fly' with melodies so meaningful they bring a tear to your eye and forward-thinking cosmic techno bangers like 'MKS100 CZ Reference Pod 9' which bend space and time. Another gem with artwork by the man himself.
Review: New Zealand collective Leisure collides many different musical worlds on their genre-blurring sophomore album, genre-blurring. Soul, r&b, rock and pop all get taken in and worked into a lush sound defined by its experimental energy. There are several standout tracks like 'Money' and 'Feeling Free' that showcase their signature sun-soaked vocals and smooth grooves. Elsewhere, Twister brings a bold, modern take on funk, which has won over both fans and critics with 'On My Mind' a prime example of their boundless creativity and knack for warm textures and adventurous spirit. As such, it's a record that cements the group's place as contemporary innovators.
Catch The Sun (From Queen & Slim: The Soundtrack) (2:57)
Consistent (2:37)
Gang Signs (2:46)
Hurtin (2:30)
Forget That (feat Rylo Rodriguez) (2:28)
Solid (2:58)
Social Distancing (2:29)
All In (2:29)
Low Down (2:20)
Humble (3:06)
Get Money (2:52)
We Paid (feat 42 Dugg) (3:02)
Review: Accomplished US star Lil Baby celebrates the five year anniversary of his breakthrough album My Turn with a special Tangerine reissue via Quality Control Music. The record was originally released in 2020 and very much launched the Atlanta rapper into superstardom and was the first long player of that year to go double platinum and eventually earn a rather impressive 7x platinum status. Famous for its era-defining hits like 'Emotionally Scarred' and 'We Paid,' the album cemented Lil Baby's status as a generational voice in hip-hop and listen back now, despite how fast this genre moves on, it still stands up as an album that marked the moment Lil Baby took the lead.
Review: Loscil (Scott Morgan) returns to Kranky with Lake Fire, an ambient fugue born of destruction and reinvention. Initially conceived as an all electronic-ensemble suite, most of the original compositions here were abandoned, except for the James Meager double bass collaboration 'Ash Clouds'. From the remnants of this ambitious but failed aim, Morgan reshaped and rebuilt the music, creating something entirely new from its soots. Impressions of a mountain road trip seep into the album's textures, marking personal milestones set against the eerie backdrop of wildfire smoke. The record takes its name from the strange irony that fires are often named after lakes, evoking a sense of ancient myth. The cover photos capture this moment of contemplation, taken from a rowboat near Revelstoke, BC, Canada.
Review: Originally conceived as a suite for electronics and ensemble but then abandoned, the latest from Vancouver-based ambient producer Scott Morgan aka Loscil sees him restructure, remix and transform the ashes of it into something newian album that feels like a smouldering landscape, its textures layered with both loss and rebirth. Loscil's Lake Fire is an album born from destruction and reinvention. Thematically, Lake Fire draws inspiration from a road trip into the mountains Morgan took to mark his personal half-century milestone. eventually surrounded by wildfires and thick smoke, and that experience seeps into the album's DNA, shaping its dense, hazy atmospheres. The title itself reflects a haunting ironyiforest fires often take their names from nearby lakes, a stark juxtaposition of destruction and serenity. The album unfolds like a shifting mist. 'Spark' is dynamic and drenched in deep chords that ripple through a cloudy haze. 'Arrhythmia' carries a heavy build, swelling with intensity before receding into silence. These pieces, along with the rest of the album, feel like echoes from another worldidistant yet deeply resonant. Released on Kranky, which has long been a home and supporter of his music, Lake Fire is another great example at Morgan's ability to craft ambient soundscapes that are both vast and intimate. It's a hypnotic listen and an exploration of impermanence and transformation wrapped in a thick sonic fog.
Review: Scruscru and Los Protos hook up on the former's ever-reliable label for some more funk-fuelled and sample-heavy madness. This eight-tracker draws on the best of Library, jazz, hip hop and soul and collides elements of all of those together with some raw, and what sounds like, MPC beats, all tapped out with a lovably loose vibe. Some like 'Local Sugar Diggers' look up towards a sunny, cloudless sky, others like 'Dreams Of Sonora' are swaggering broken beat workouts with sensuous sax lines setting a steamy tone. 'Por Do Sol Em Shelekhmet' is another highlight with its aloof, angelic vocal tones.
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