Bestsellers All Time

Review: These guys have been flying the flag for quality amongst the disco re-edit community for a while now. This new two-tracker is being hailed as one of their best yet, with the title track being a lean, super-perky chopped up floor filler with infectious female vocals and a just-go-with-it Euro-rap. The second track is from the other side of the tracks: it's the type of slow n sleazy new wave-disco tune you can imagine in a dark early 80s New York fleapit, where the cast of Liquid Sky hang and dance in a beautifully nonchalant manner.

Review: Compiled and mixed by Seven, and featuring a host of big players in the dubstep scene, Live Beyond's first release is an important one amongst a sea of digitised fodder. With two contributions for the release, Benny Page kicks things off with "Rank" and "Liar Liar", delivering enough grimy synth bass to give the neighbours something to complain about. Featuring a catchy hook and a twisted guitar riff, Seven & N Type's "Pacific States" delves deep, as does Ben Verse's "Venomous" and Lurka's "Prophet (VIP)", which, with its hypnotising dubbed out rhythms and sparse cavernous vocals, is a definite highpoint. Purely for the dancefloor, 501's "White Lies" is bound to keep feet moving with its massive synth lines and equally colossal build up. For originality, Crushington's "Paper Walls" is a definite highlight, bringing a blend of intricate rhythms, deadly bass, ravey stabs and train passing sounds expertly together. Taking things to subaqueous levels, the aptly named Subreachers come correct with "Future Blindness", while Seven delivers a trademarked quality stonker with "Subconscious" and The Dynamics finish off proceedings with their political speech fuelled "Changes". With 10 exclusive tracks and a bonus mix from DJ Seven, this is an enchanting foray for the label and definitely worth the binary it's written on.

Review: With remixes from Crosstown Rebels man Maceo Flex and Hot Creations type Danny Daze, Ellum Audio are clearly aiming high with their second release. Bazar's original version of "Hard To Find" is pretty tasty, though, sounding like a delightful high-octane fusion of touchy-feely E-house, off-kilter electronic disco and 80s synth frippery (check the "Blue Monday" syn-voice chords). Plex delivers an even more wide-eyed version, dipping the tempo slightly and contrasting rubbery funk basslines with typically blissful builds. Danny Daze, meanwhile, works a spooky, low-slung groove before throwing in some twinkling pianos and washes of sleazy synths.

Review: Beards. Where'd they come from, eh? One minute it was all asymmetrical haircuts and 80s electro-pop, then the beards & disco brigade arrived. Well successful re-edit imprint Whiskey Disco proves that beards are still big and happening. YSE has a shady house music history but here displays his love of disco with four quality reworks. "Freeze Frame" is a vocoder-led slow building chant-a-long, "I Own The Boogie" is a deep and intense disco funker with killer basslines (both electronic and live), "Warm Wind Brewing" is a Fantasy Island/Love Boat romantic journey and "Here I Come Again" ends things with some raw disco seduction.

Review: Bristol boys Die and Break team up for this stunning release on Shy FX's Digital Soundboy label. Title track "Grand Funk Hustle" kicks things off with a shimmy of keys, sax, vocal and shuffling bongo beats, before we are taken into a dutty bassline roller. Next up, "Tear Down" is all muffled beats, echoing vocals, punchy drums and grinding subs for the duration, before we are taken onwards, ever onwards, through "Deep Search" with its rumbling subs and atmospheric pressure to "Peace & Dub" feat. MC Fats. If you've not seen the video for this, check it. The track itself is a glorious homage to dub. Superb.

Review: Four hip-hop/breaks/nu-funk gems from the mash-up specialists at Booty Fruit, as this latest volume of their "Homemade Bullets" series takes in, amongst other things, Jackson 5 strings on "Grand Daddy Represent" and a Paul McCartney classic on the punning "Lady Mad On Her". Check it!

Review: The second in Booty Fruit's "Proper Produce" series sees four new funk-propelled mash ups hitting the virtual shelves this week. Among the highlights, Beastie Boys fans will certainly appreciate El Bomba & Hidden Riddim's "Dr Fluteski", which uses the same sample source as the NYC legends' "Flute Loop", while The Allergies give Blueboy's "Remember Me" an '80s soul rerub.

Review: Not content with releasing records that pay homage to the sounds of the '90s, Local Talk bosses Mad Mats and Tooli have now signed a tune made by a production act that were last heard of in the '90s (well, 1999). "Breaking", then, is the first Kyodai record for nearly 13 years. It sounds like it was made back then, offering a smooth, piano-laden fusion of alien synths, shuffling beats and cut-up vocal stabs. It's tasty, but the real fun is to be had on the "90s Mix" and "90s Dub", both of which up the organ count in a tribute to mid-'90s New Jersey garage.

Review: Fresh-faced funkateer Manjah steps up to the party-hardy Katakana series, and does so with distinction. It's a game of two halves as the first two cuts are dedicated to chanteuses Smokey Robinson and Donna Hightower. Both powered by swashbuckling 60s funk riffs, these are authentic edits done with true creativity. Later on in the EP we head West to the Caribbean as Manjah gets his skank on with Dancehall Queen. Those with a penchant for Greek taverna flavours should hold tight for the rustic groove on "Orienta Patria". Nice work.

Review: Having made his debut on Claude Von Stroke's Dirtybird way back in 2005, multi-talented San Fran electro-bass producer Justin Martin makes his full-length debut with this excellent LP. Luckily for fans of last year's excellent, juke-influenced collaboration with Ardalan, "Lezgo", there's a VIP mix included here that makes for a bigger, more building rerub, while Martin also does a great job covering Goldie's seminal "Kemistry" - adding some real venom and bite in the process. Look out for the deep and twisting "Ruff Stuff" and the syrupy "Night Calling" too.

Review: Swapping previous collaborator Krafty Kutz for the Beatvandals on the latest in the Insane Bangers series of hip-hop/breakbeat bootlegs, A Skillz brings home two more battle weapons and party-starters for your delectation. "Hot Dogg" lays the acapella from Snoop's "Drop It Like It's Hot" over some nicely rounded beats and bass, while "Money Banger" has a lot of fun with the O Jay's "For The Love Of Money", blending in cuts from MOP's "Ante Up" and Frankie Cutlass' "Puerto Rico" for good measure.

Review: This batch of Beatvandals floor fillers initially surfaced 7 years ago on wax and has been long deleted on the format. It finally gets a digital release as a 3 track download which gathers the vocals and rhythms of the first lady of freaked out hip hop, a certain infamous rock band who just called it quits, the Bussa Bus and even a Toots tried & trusted classic all to be reworked with Beatvandals mash up treatment .It ultimately delivers a fun release that is basically a no brainer for a packed dancefloor.

Review: There ain't no party like a Tru Funk Nu Party! Seriously now, not even S-Club could match the supersize funk flavours this label have been dishing up this year, and this latest compendium is no exception. Highlights include Sammy Senior's overhaul of Nelly's "Country Grammar", Lakeshore Drive's super laidback Q-Tipper "Funk'n Outta Bounds" and DJ Axe's percussion heavy sample-fest "Funky Town". Tru Funk have excelled themselves on this package.

Review: Two masters of bootleg-style, hip-hop/funk mash ups team up for this latest instalment in Bombstrikes' series of party rocking tuneage. A Skillz and Beatvandals play a blinder on "Sunshine" - speeding up Roy Ayres' bonafide classic "Everybody Loves The Sunshine" with a tight beat layered underneath and chopped up respectfully. "Slapdance" however sees the pair take the beat from NERD's debut single "Lapdance" and cover it in well-crafted acapella cuts to make it a heavy-hitting floor filler.

Review: Since launching last year, House of Disco Records has made something of a splash, offering an array of disco-influenced deep house cuts with a decidedly atmospheric flavour. Here they join forces with the similarly minded Dikso label for an expansive compilation featuring fresh cuts from both imprints' artists. There's much to admire, from the casual soulfulness of Nihan Solo's super-deep "Hey Girl" (inspired, perhaps, by dewy-eyed '80s soul) to the delay-laden, low-end wobble of Daniel Solar's "Hush" and Unsui's excellent slo-mo acid jam "Anata". Best of all, though, is Volta Cab's "What It Feels Like", a supreme example of super-sensual warm-up fare.

Review: Having come to the fore via some rather divisive edits of Dorian Concept, Steve Reich and Mariah Carey, the Stockholm based producer HNNY serves notice of his capacity for original productions with this rather fine release on the Local Talk label. This fifteenth release for Mad Mats' resolutely deep house operation maintains the standards set by previous emissions, and it's easy to see why opening track "For The Very First Time" has already been embraced by HNNY's former overseers Studio Barnhus. That all too authentic take on the early 90s NYC house sound is a good primer for what to expect from hereon in, with the similar equation of pitched vocal snatches craftily twisted around infectious yet simplistic melodic motifs and thick bass lines also characterising "Apricots". Do check the percussive 10 minute long behemoth that is "Trummor" for an example of what else HNNY can do - an expert DJ tool in the mould of how they used to be done, back in those days.