Hard Ton At Juno Download

Review: The ever excellently named Danny Was A Drag Queen imprint return to "Chocolate Black Leather" Ajello's supreme collaboration with Hard Ton with this top heavy selection of remixes. Upon original release it was backed with a ton of revisions from Brennan Green, though this remix EP presents a more varied selection with the likes of Discodromo sharing space with the legend that is Q Burns Abstract Message. It's Cocktail D'Amour duo Discodromo who call shotgun with a propulsive italo remix, which contrasts nicely with the kind of breakbeat meets disco flutter of Tempelhof's effort. The brilliantly named Analog People In a Digital World turn in an expansive ten minute techno effort, whilst Q Burns provides both vocal and dub remixes with the loose limbed latter perhaps the pick of the bunch.

Review: A swift return to Internasjonal for Cocktail D'Amour's Discodromo, with their cosmically charged disco burner "Build A House" lined with the distinctive vocal talents of diva supreme Hard Ton. His soaring vocals are the perfect accompaniment to a vintage Discodromo production that updates the disco template superbly - laying down a devilish bassline groove that sucks you in before Hard Ton arrives and blows you away. Label boss Prins Thomas turns in a fine dub remix that naturally brings the bassline to the fore whilst subjecting the vocal and melodic elements to all manner of reverse trickery! And look, the flip has a remix from your man Tensnake, who rewires the track to some sort of Jellybean Benitez mid 90s pump and in the process delivers his finest work for some time.

Review: Berlin house head Hard Ton returns to the Toytonics label he inaugurated last year with another round of jacking 90s vocal house. "Food From Love" has all the electrofunk tendencies of his last Toytonics release, combining a raw drum machine rhythm with midnight keys and a rising arpeggio which perfectly complements the yearning Bronski Beat-esque vocal. "From Club To Club" meanwhile wears its rave influences a little more explicitly on its sleeve, with a bubbling acid line and neon house stabs popping off in the background, while the pitched down backing vocals offer a subtle contrast to its companion. "Food Of Love" is also given a rather stunningly deep rework by the legendary DJ Sprinkles, who adds his own meandering bassline and latin percussion elements to give the whole thing a welcome bit of swing, before soaring off on an improvised piano line at the end.

Review: New on California's Cordovan label, GSUB's "Hudu" is a sleek UKF/grime banger that will seriously get under your skin despite its relative simplicity. After introducing itself with some tropical snares and tight bass hits, it breaks into a zombified Eastern horn riff which sets about transforming the tune. With the percussion handled just right with Roska-esque clarity, there's little not to love about the original, radio mix and dub versions that make up this very tasty single.

Review: New German imprint Toy Tonics launch with panache and style, scooping up the instantly familiar Hard Ton for the hard jacking, high pitched action of the Not Again EP. According to the press release, Toy Tonics' remit is to focus on Berlin-centric artists whose music references 90s house and German electrofunk, which makes Hard Ton an obvious candidate. The title track "Not Again" is a glorious combination of fully primed drum machine funk, rich analogue bass, raved up keyboard stabs, deviating acid lines and of course Hard Ton's singularly unique holler. The ever dependable Snuff Crew are a perfect choice to remix the track, stripping down the melodic excesses and introducing their own unpredictable acid refrain and uber raved stabs to give the track a fresh look. Hard Ton's "In This Moment" throws down expansive keys and pads over rigidly framed "Set It Off" drums and it's given a looser, uplifting, almost 90s freestyle sheen by Dimitri From Paris and DJ Rocca.

Review: Serial nu-dusco fancier Kelton Prima returns with an EP for shiny electronic disco label Pizzico Nobel. The French knob-twiddler here offers something a bit different, largely abandoning the synthesizers in favour of dubbed-out guitars, drums and strings. The result is a soaring, slo-mo vocal number that has more in common with soul or pop than haircut-friendly electronic disco. There are two remixes, of which Johnny Paguro provides the most noteworthy. His twisted rub takes the original's dubbiness to extremes, turning in a filter-heavy slo-mo dub that should find favour with anyone who likes their disco sweet and dubbed-out.