Review: Athens Of The North can usually be found honing their expert craft of unearthing nigh impossible to find disco, and reissuing it in the utmost quality. However, the work of East Coast Love Affair (Euan Fryer and Nick Moore) is deceiving, as it adopts the image of one of said reissues while actually being fully contemporary music. 'Get Down' tops up a slew of master-quality releases for the label, expropriating a vocal line from obscure Minneapolis 'lo-fi' band Quiet Storm and putting it back into an entirely new, drunk-and-high instrumental context (think lasers, whistles, funk basses, an overall hazy sound). 'Can You Deal', on the flip, lends Quiet Storm a similar treatment, albeit for a cleverly hi-lo-fi disco house treatment.
Review: There's a certain brand of 4x4 deep house that utterly slapssss. And that's exactly the business Toolroom Records are in - they're simultaneous experts at throwing us back to the sprawling garage paradises, while still lending modern, buildup-drop flairs to their productions. This V/A 12" sampler from a wider comp shows off choice buts from label mainstays, Essel, Guz, Qubiko, et al., showing off the best of what Italy's poppy deep house scene has to offer.
Mark Knight & James Hurr - "You Are A God" (feat Cari Golden) (6:16)
Qubiko - "Talking To Myself" (5:44)
Leftwing : Kody - "Mallet" (6:34)
ESSEL - "Try" (5:27)
Review: Toolroom Records are partly responsible for the recent upsurge in jackin' deep house in the early 2020's; this sampler record, the second in their compilations EP series, serves as yet another tour of their grand new deep house estate. Delusions of grandeur are expressed on 'You Are A God' - which, for a track so deitylike, measures itself with rather a lot of restraint - while 'Talking To Myself' contains a vocal sample that is so mouthy and infectious that we really are beginning to believe ourselves to have been possessed by Metatron. 'Mallet' swerves into tribal territory, while ESSEL's 'Try' could be a contender for dance-chart-topper, assuming its piano weaponry is effective enough at swaying the radio pluggers. Joyous stuff.
Review: Let There Be House welcome Queen B and Lee Wilson for a big and soulful new single here that spans all eras of house music. The six-minute 'Nobody Else,' is built on a knotted bassline that never lets up. The silky drums call to mind Kings of Tomorrow and the timeless diva vocal up top is never going to age. It's a feel-good tune with plenty of colourful xylophone melodies. On the reverse is a Glen Horsborough remix that lays down big piano energy that is sure to make for plenty of unforgettable and floor-filling end of night moments.
Review: Dutch producer and DJ Dennis Quin takes things into his own hands once more here with a new EP of rock-solid house grooves on his self-titled label. These are tracks that are well-informed by what has gone before but is never too slavish to house history. They follow on from big outings on the likes of PIV, Cecille, Defected, Jerome Sydenham's Iconic Ibadan and Kaoz Theory (he has also collaborated with Kaoz boss Kerri Chandler) and feature the swinging bulk of 'Temptation', busy drum breaks of 'Ascending', dark energy of 'Odyssey' and sleazy vibes of 'Love Fiyaa.'
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