Back catalogue: House

Review: Last year, Mother Tongue Records released Madre Lingua, an album of all-star collaborations between broken beat and deep house musicians and producers helmed by Verona-based Brit Patrick Gibin. This 12" updates two of the tracks from the set, with Gibin once again to the fore. On side A, he joins forces with long-time friend and studio buddy Kaidi Tatham to remix EDB and Gary Superfly's 'Pressure'. Their tack is bouncy and synth-heavy, with spacey, out-there lead lines and intergalactic-sounding pads rising above a Maurice Fulton-as-Syclops style bassline and loose-limbed house drums. On the flip, Marc De Clive-Lowe remixes his own collaboration with Gibin and Tommasso Capelleto, 'Apollo', brilliantly joining the dots between spacey jazz-funk and ambient on a superb, beat-free 'Dreamscape' mix.

Review: Jihoon links with some talented musicians including Thomas Xu, Omar Meftah, Eric Meftah and Ian Gold on this brilliant new three-tracker on One Spoke. It kicks off with the sublime 'Good In The Bad' which is a jazzy viber with flute lines dancing their own dance above lovely contemporary broken beats. 'There Is No End' layers chords, synths and jazz drums into a richly atmospheric groove before last of all the whole of the flip side is given over to a Thomas Xu & Ian Gold remix of 'There Is No End' that is gloriously sunny jazz-fusion at its finest. These will keep you warm no matter the weather outside this winter.

Review: Long-serving, jazz-loving deep house duo Kemetic Just have been working with Terrence Downs for years, with the singer's soulful vocals appearing on many of their tracks over the last two decades. There's no original mix of 'We R Culture' here, but rather a quartet of club-ready remixes. DJ Spinna leads the way with vocal and instrumental variations of his 'Galactic Soul Mix' - a gorgeously colourful, pin-sharp shuffle through synth-powered deep house loveliness with all of the intricate musical touches and kaleidoscopic keyboard solos you'd expect from the NYC producer. Elsewhere, Wipe The Needle re-frames the track as a breezy, musically rich slab of jazz-funk-tinged broken beat of the sort regularly served up by Dego and Kaidi Tatham, while the Househeads mix is a carnival-ready, samba-house treat.

Review: Spanish label Mate is back with more excellent Deep House cuts from different corners of the scene. Vick Lavender repeats on the label this time with a vocal song feat. David Glen, simply magical. Italian finest Reekee which has just been released on Patric Scott's Sistrum presents a fusion of electronica and jazz with solid and elegant drums. Shaka from Switzerland offers us the groove and house vibes straight to the dancefloor. Nicola Alteri is The Mechanical Man, broken beat with sharp chords and R&B vocals combined perfectly. Don't let it get away!

Review: ***B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition***


Kaidi Tatham back on 2000BLACK needs little explanation really, does it? Anyone who takes broken beat and neo soul seriously should already be slipping this on in their cart, but for the uninitiated this is one of the grandmasters of the sound in full flight. 'Galaxy' is a beautiful, uplifting soul-boogie jam with a stunning vocal turn from Lola Violet, and it comes in two different twists depending on the energy you need to bring to your set - for us the 'Uptempo Mix' is a perfect shot of joy in the arm. 'A Message From Above' cools things down with gorgeous keys, a characteristically snagging beat and sultry horns, and 'Ergonomic Structures' slinks into the sweetest of downtempo funks that'll have you head nodding hard and keeping you chill all in the same beat.

Review: Kaidi Tatham back on 2000BLACK needs little explanation really, does it? Anyone who takes broken beat and neo soul seriously should already be slipping this on in their cart, but for the uninitiated this is one of the grandmasters of the sound in full flight. 'Galaxy' is a beautiful, uplifting soul-boogie jam with a stunning vocal turn from Lola Violet, and it comes in two different twists depending on the energy you need to bring to your set - for us the 'Uptempo Mix' is a perfect shot of joy in the arm. 'A Message From Above' cools things down with gorgeous keys, a characteristically snagging beat and sultry horns, and 'Ergonomic Structures' slinks into the sweetest of downtempo funks that'll have you head nodding hard and keeping you chill all in the same beat.

Review: Starting 2020 like they mean to go on, West London's 2000 Black crew serves up an essential four-tracker created during jam sessions between regular collaborators Kaidi Tatham, Akwasi Mensah, Matt Lord and Dennis "Dego" McFarlane (Ranks). As with their previous collaborative releases, its' four tracks variously join the dots between deep house, bruk, jazz-funk and mellower flavours. As usual, the beats are tight and weighty, the musicianship exceptional (Kaidi's keys-playing being a particular highlight), the chords deep and the lead lines memorable. While all four tracks are excellent, our picks are the rubbery bruk-up bliss of "Return of Pastor Shadrach" and the sun-kissed broken house warmth of "Life After Subway".

Review: Hardcore followers of deep and jazzy house might well know the name Terry Tester already. He has dropped some fine cuts on labels like Brownswood and BBE and now he cooks up some gritty but glorious new grooves for Creak Inc. His loose-limbed rhythmic style is laid bare on the opener 'Walkin' while 'Wansel' brings some bright and jazzy melodies that light up the ramshackle drums with future soul. Things get nice and trippy on 'Chance' which is wried up with pixelated stabs, acid mumbles and off-grid hits. The best of the lot might be the final cut 'Seven' with its seductive female vocal coos, wispy pads and Detroit drums. Innovative stuff for sure.

Review: Thomas Xu tends not to release much music, but when he does it tends to be musically rich, rhythmically complex and very, very good. That's certainly the case with "Places In Time", his second EP on Steady Flight following an inspired 2017 debut on Theo Parrish's Sound Signature imprint. There's much to set the pulse racing across the EP, from the heavily analogue, synthesizer-powered, intergalactic jazz-funk looseness of "Easin", and the slipped 21st century instrumental space-jazz of "Tired A Being Tired (What Are We Here For)", to the densely layered, piano-driven ambience of "Promise 2", and the hard-to-pigeonhole eccentricity of closing cut "Let's Go See Roy".

Review: Two years ago, Thomas Xu announced himself via a fine debut 12" on Sound Signature where he shared vinyl space with Julion De'Angelo. Here he launches his own label, Steady Flight Circle, via a first full solo EP of his own. It's really rather good, with Xu combining spacey jazz-funk synths, emotive chord progressions and rich musicality with beats that tend towards the jazzy, broken and off-kilter. All three tracks feel loose, warm and immediate, as if they were jammed-out in one take. While they clearly weren't, this improvised feel is hugely endearing. From the sounds of "Different Widsoms", Xu will clearly be a producer to watch in the months and years ahead.

Review: Fresh Sounds #000 is a new and unique series, limited and numbered to 150 examples thanks to the efforts of its parent company Ribo Cochlee. For the very first edition of the series, a mockley crew of newcomers come to the fore, be they DJ Moar, Disco Flegrei or Holdtight. Centring on woozy jazzdance and disco with an airily produced bent, the highlights on this one have to be Flegrei's 'Titamesque', which basks in a kind of sexy sophistry procured by the heady combination of live drums and a (we think) muted bass clarinet, and Yured Jones' 'Far Away', which breaks from the genre prescription for a more cinematic breakdown.

Review: The word 'legend' gets banded about rather a lot, but it is certainly applicable to West London scene stalwart Kaidi Tatham. Further confirmation of this elevated status can be found throughout "It's A World Before You", a staggeringly good album that marks the musician-producer's first solo set for some seven years. While rooted in the kind of warm, rich and life-affirming jazz-funk-fuelled broken beat workouts with which Tatham is most readily associated (and they're naturally superb), there's plenty of killer diversions dotted throughout. These include a couple of spacey, soul-flecked ambient rubs, a sublime collaboration with hip-hop/modern soul fusionists Children of Zeus, and a fine head-nodding hip-hop jam featuring rapper Uhmeer. In a word: essential.

Review: Broken beat hero Kaidi Tatham steps forth with the first in a series of all-star remix albums of the Reel People Music back catalogue. Over an impressive ten tracks, Tatham sashays between syrupy soul slo-jams, virtuosic broken beat trips, almost UK funky-esque live jams, and acoustic boom bap beats. Percies include the sweeter-than-molasses opening flip of Sebb Junior's 'All My Life', his sassy, stripped-back version of Daz-I-Kue and Hadiya George's 'Pedigree' and a dazzlingly technical re-run of the Monkey Brothers' 'Losin my Head.' With this anthology, Tatham proves that London's broken beat scene continues to flourish, and his boundary-hopping style is as relevant as ever.

Review: Teno Afrika follows up his Amapiano Selections album from last year with a fine new long player on Awesome tapes From Africa. Lutendo Raduvha hails from Pretoria, South-Africa and on this record he mixes up electronic sounds with world, folk, country, Afro and house influences. There are two collabs with Diego Don and vocalists KayCee, Leyla and Style MusiQ all add their own flavours to what is a superb showcase of the fresh sounds coming out of the African continent right now. On this evidence, few artists embody that revolution more than Teno Afrika.

Review: Thatmanmonkz is Scott Moncrieff to be precise, a Sheffield based producer who been making house music since around 1997 but more recently on Kolour LTD and of course Delusions Of Grandeur: where he's recognised as a label mainstay. His new album Colombusing is a mighty 14 track effort, and there's a wide variety of moods and grooves, not to mention collaborations! Some of those very hookups are the highlights on here, we must say. There's a couple of tracks with San Francisco minimalist/human beatbox Dave Aju; "Turn It Out" is a deep and sleazy funk jam with Cameo-ish vocals, while "Boogie Down" features the sweet lungs of Erik Rico whose Curtis Mayfield impressions suit this feelgood soul jam just perfectly. "Baked" features the deep poetry of NYC's Malik Ameer on this on this dope jam full of urban flavour. There's music to dance to too, rest assured: "Take U 2 My House" featuring Khalil Anthony is surefire deep house aimed squarely at the dance floor.