Back Catalogue

Review: Vato Gonzalez goes in on Zinc's now ubiquitous dancefloor anthem and gives it a new lease of life for 2011, transforming it from booty bass, crack house notoriety into a cool 4/4 incarnation with hypnotic bongo beats, thumping drum kicks and smooth tropical flavours which are all oozing with late night / early morning Ibiza vibes. Ms Dynamite's superb sing-a-long lyrics are woven amongst the pumping beats, coming into focus at choice moments. An excellently executed remix here.

Review: Taken from new album Indigo Child, "When Angles Sing" sees garage/UKF/soul/house journeyman Donae'o drop a hugely affecting and soulful original backed by some huge name remixers. With Terri Walker joining the Don over a soft, strings 'n' piano-blessed funky beat, the original recalls classic Brit soul artists like Omar and Imagination for its sheer lusciousness, while Donae'o provides his own half-step dubstep retweak on the release too. Toddla T busts out a bunch of phasers on his sped-up piano house mix, while Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs takes "When Angels Sing" on a beautifully dubby slow electro-meets-nu jazz excursion that compliments the dual vocals perfectly. Lil Silva on the other hand goes for a full on rinse out with some huge builds and metallic percussion all present and correct.

Review: First debuted on a recent Sound Pellegrino podcast, Bambounou's "Alpha" has been hotly anticipated for a while now, and it's definitely been worth the wait. The French producer and Youngunz star loads some compressed kicks and heavy-gliding synths into the mix on "Alpha", while "Dock Request" rides an ever-changing bass arpeggio and some brilliantly disjointed drum patterns. "Heroic Requests" brings out a heavily nocturnal, stripped-down Detroit sound into play and "Divided By Zero" rounds off the EP with a dubby, ghost-house rouser that's simply gripping and hugely addictive. This release comes replete with mixes of all four tunes from Teeth, Lunice, Darling Farah & Ikonika.

Review: A producer who's been slowly toiling away for a few years now and steadily impressing with every new release or mix, 2011 should hopefully be the year French Fries collects some well-earned props. It all comes together on the excellent Laquisha EP, with the title tune leading from the front with singer/MC Taiwan's auto-tuned vocals nestling among hyped soca beats and a chorus akin to L-Vis 1990's recent "Forever You". However if vocals aren't your thing, Youngunz have thrown in a very useful dub into the release. By contrast, "Charlotte" is a fruity Latin/tropical banger that relies on smart arrangements, tight and addictive piano loops and some hybrid mainroom/funky beats to really make its point, but on a more aggy tip, the pounding bass punch of "Merel" is pure Joy O meets Bok Bok - a dreamy set of pads mixed with a distorted punch and some riotous hats and snares. A perfect choice of remixers underlines the quality of this EP. Buraka Som Sistema's J-Wow makes "Laquisha" his own by adding blurry, tear-stained organs and a crisp carnival beat to the tune, before expertly dropping the tempo down to around 100bpm for a rowdy, head-nodding moment of genius. Just as incredible is man-of-the-moment Canblaster's electrifying version of "Charlotte" - almost a complete overhaul that truly needs to be heard to be believed. Lil Silva is just the right man to tackle the funky beast that is "Merel" and he takes it on with aplomb - adding some freaked-out organ stabs and some liquid distortion to the already chaotic kicks.

Review: An incredibly impressive selection of remixes on this fun and fruity single from French producer Manare. A relative newcomer, he's managed to capture the current trends for tropical, snare-led beats and jazzy samples perfectly on "Speakeasy" with its '30s, Cotton Club-style trumpets billowing over a perfectly balanced beat. The much-praised duo Renaissance Man work up a thrillingly intense and minimal beat that builds with filtered up shivers of the original's trumpets, joined in turn by choir samples at one point. As more and more is added to the mix, it becomes a jacking treat and one well worth checking out. Lorcan Mak uses the choir vocals as the main melody, albeit side-chained to within an inch of it life. DJ Beware & Motorpitch take things down on their mix, employing a deep house groove and peppering it with horn stabs as they build the vibe step by step. With another Manare original, the ferocious electro monster "Pirog" included as well as a Dubbel Dutch mix, this is a very classy, utterly cool EP that really represents the best of 2010.

Review: Youngunz drop a new compilation entitled Sinterklaas Society, featuring seven slices of jagged deep and funky joints from Coni, Manare, Bambounou, Chaos In The CBD, French Fries, Alan Gay and Lazy Flow. The oven warm chords and classic house vocal snippets on Coni's opening track "Sunday" stands tall above the deluge of digital deep house on the market; likewise Manare's "Boomerang" executes a stripped back, stuttering vibe with masterful precision. From here the compilation takes a neat twist from deep house flavours to stripped back dubstep-tinged head nodders, with French Fries' genre-dodging "Crushin On Me" and Alan Gray's baroque-tinged "Deaf Moonlight" leading to the hand-sup finale "Blue Jets" by Lazy Flow and featuring Girl Is Tough. Top stuff from start to finish.

Review: Aaron Jerome dons his favourite tribal mask for another outing under the increasingly high profile SBTRKT moniker. The effortlessly soulful "Hold On" was one of the highlights of last year's debut SBTRKT full length - a slick, broken beat throwback with enough deep future garage chops to keep contemporary dancefloors happy. Here, the excellent original is joined by the more obviously dancefloor-centric Sisi Bak Bak remix (an alias of none other than Thom Yorke!), which chops up the beats, vocal and melodies in classic future garage fashion. Also worth a listen is bonus cut "Ride To Freedom", a glorious starburst of MDMA-rich synths and shuffling broken beats.