Back catalogue: Disco/Nu-Disco

Review: Get yourself geared up for festival season with some fierce party starters certified with the Glitterbox stamp. Melvo Baptiste leads the charge with 'Sweat', a sizzling disco house stomper with Dames Brown giving the biggest diva energy on her show-stopping vocal. Lovebirds bring unbridled joy on the Philly string swoon and slinky b-line funk of 'Burn It Down', while Art Of Tones & Inaya Day keep it peak time on the sassy strutter 'Give My Love'. Young Pulse & Fleur De Mur complete the set with 'Smooth Sweet Talker', another bright and bold vocal cut par excellence.

Review: It's been 22 years since the release of I-F's razor-sharp Dutch electro anthem, "Space Invaders Are Smoking Grass". Given the upsurge in interest in electro of late, it's little surprise to see the man himself offering up this reissue, which is focused around two previously digital-only revisions that first landed back in 2010. Stretched out across the A-side is the brilliant - and undeniably mind-altering - "XL Remix", a nine-minute revision that gives greater prominence to the producer's twisted electronic riffs, industrial strength melodies and dusty drum machine percussion. This time round, it comes accompanied by both a vocoder-free Instrumental take and "Pong's Run", a lesser-known collaboration with Intergalactic Gary that's slow, spacey, out-there and thoroughly intoxicating.

Review: Imaa is an experimental disco, funk and soul project which has graced the discography of the DD Lahouve Production label since at least 2014; in said timeframe, this mysterious moniker has topped up at least five releases in the French city pop vein. Although little information can be tracked down about the main artist or artists behind the project itself, we can verify that the new 12" record 'Funky Town' is indeed something special, an original, slick and catchy electric groove featuring the rampart new jack production of producer Claudio Esposito.

Review: Indeep's 'Last Night A DJ Saved My Life' is one of those all-time classics - a stone cold floor filler that gets everyone going whether they're fans of the darkest techno or the most camp house. The vocals, the groove, the hooky guitars are all just perfect and never fail to bring a break out of energy and good times. Here it gets pressed up by Kookoo with the original 1982 versions featuring next to some more sped-up mixes by Smeddles who variously goes deep, dubby and funky across this 12".

Review: Ahead of their European tour, Turkish electronic group Islandman share their EP 'Popsicle Obstacle', the new material on which tracks a heady musical pathway from archaic folk traditions and regional acoustics right through to the modern-day tonic-sonics of the electronic sequencer. Having made headway from the spiritualist dream of primitive past to the glossy utopia of a digital future, Islandman's core members are multi-instrumentalist & producer Tolga Boyuk, Eralp Guven (percussion) and Erdem Baser (guitars). The title is a misnomer, if not for the fact that the six tracks here are hardly obstacles at all; rather, they're hugely well-produced, flavoursome treats, chief among which has to be the incredible track 'Simple Man', which - take it from us - just gets cooler and cooler, timbrally and tastefully.

Review: Welcome to Nila's Quest, a brand new label that starts as all good day's should, with a healthy serving of breakfast. It's an Argentina Breakfast, to be precise, and the first of what we can only assume will be a series of releases under this title. Jovit is first out of the blocks with the cosmic and crunchy tech house of 'Gamma Goblin' while Ian Puchetti then gets all blissed out and beach with his Ibiza tinged deep house cut 'Dreams'. There is a charming sense of 80s synth nostalgia to the snappy beats of Bruno & TOBI's 'Te Quiero' then Dual Sense's 'Morning Driver' closes out with a perfect soundtrack to late night driving.

Review: Athens of the North has got some fantastic and previously unreleased lo-fi goodness on their hands here. It comes from Lee Tracy and Isaac Manning's back catalogue and has been boosted subtly by some studio drumming from ECLA which adds a little more heft to it. 'Foxy Lady' is a lithe funk jam with shimmering synths and snappy snares over nice broken beats. It is backed with 'Jesus Going To Clean House' which is a standout cut from the album that has got many heads falling over themselves so good is it. The vamping chords and dusty deep house drums could all be a forgotten Chicago classic while the vocal is a real one packed with emotion.

Review: Alphonsus Idigo's Search album was originally recorded in 1987 and now gets a licensed reissue on the Italian label Dig This Way. The superb album blends li-fi aesthetics with drum computer rhythms and has plenty of sugary sweet and catchy synths bringing it to life in retro-future fashion. As far as cosmic boogie sounds go, they don't get much more infectious than this from Mr. Idigo, who worked on the project with producer Austine Onwurah and together made something distinctly Nigerian. It is much sought after so don't sleep on this reissue, which will sell out.

Review: Il Bosco released his first EP back in 2011 on this label and the sounds epitomised the early roots of the Manchester-based label Red Laser. Now he is back with Mega Misses From The Manctalo Diskoteque, a new collection of vintage-sounding Italo-inspired disco games made, it sounds, with an arrangement one authentic vintage gear. Each of these cuts has a compelling rhythm and is embellished with gorgeous melodies and arps that range from dreamy to stiff to seductive. Deadpan vocals make 'Track 2' a real throwback, 'Track 3' has a funky, smooth cruising sound and the rest of the double album plays out with equal elan.

Review: The arrival of Il Quadro di Troisi could not have been more ironic. Anything but new faces on the music scene, the Italian electronic partnership of Eva Geist and Donato Dozzy debuted as the reality of living in a pandemic really began to hit home - November 2020. A month that usually calls for their brand of dark, Ital-disco-cold-synth stuff was void of the situations you'd want to hear it in. No parties, no clubs, no concerts - not even an opportunity to stick it on when getting ready to do something. Nevertheless, we've more than made up for it now, and having grown incredibly close betwixt that waking nightmare and today's chaos, the arrival of a new LP is an enticing prospect. As the notes explain, "everything changes, all things evolve, nothing stays the same... La Commedia marks the band's embrace of a more traditional song form, shaped by a very personal and distinctive musical style. The distinguishing elements of Il Quadro di Troisi's music meld into a unique mix that is both seductive and eerie, elegant and earthy, contemporary and timeless."

Review: Following up on their highly acclaimed debut release from 2020, raster presents Il Quadro di Troisi's Remixes album, an eclectic collection of reinterpretations of eight of the group's tracks. By inviting fellow label artists as well as friends and long-term collaborators to contribute, Remixes flaunts a broad spectrum, from colorful, loop-based renditions by Toulouse Low Trax and Tropicantesimo, to (Italo)-disco-inspired versions by Daniele Baldelli & Marco Dionigi and Chloe, to more rhythmical and functional tracks by AtomTM, Dasha Rush and Front de Cadeaux. The album also includes a dub-infused reinterpretation of the original album 'Il giudizio' by the artists themselves; all tracks amount to womping, texturologic electro-dub-outs, and dazzle with their no-wavey, muted sophistication.

Review: Imagination was both an obscure German jazz-rock band from Dusseldorf who recorded a series of rather good records in the late 1970s as well as being a fine UK electrofunk act. They amassed a fine catalogue of great hits that made an impact across 28 countries and earned them four platinum discs and nine gold discs amongst other accolades. No Music No Life has now remastered The Very Best Of Imagination which offers up their most well-known hits such as the irresistible 'Body Talk' and slow motion workout that is 'Flashback' amongst many more.

Review: Indeep's 'Last Night A D.J. Saved My Life' is one of the most recognisable disco tunes of its generation, but also the title of the group's 1983 album. The New York outfit never had a tune as big as that one again but when something is such a fine mix of boogie, funk and soul as that and loved by everyone universally, does that even matter? The rest of the album which is now being reissued is packed with plenty of other more than useful dancefloor cuts with big hooks, buoyant drums and colourful synth work.