Jerome Derradji At Juno Download

Review: Fresh from putting together the brilliant early house comp 122 BPM, Jerome Derradji pops up on his own Stillove4music imprint with a trio of tried-and-tested reworks. Lead cut "Disconnected" is particularly celebratory, offering a cozy but driving chunk of touchy-feely disco with a European twist. "Whatchadoin", meanwhile, expertly extends a familiar slap-bass heavy disco groove, teasing out a heavyweight groove before dropping into the revelatory vocal. "Adaptive Control", meanwhile, delivers an acid-flecked groove and the sort of spooky synths that suggest that the end of days is nigh. As edits EPs go, Disconnect is one of the more interesting of recent times.

Review: Label boss Jerome Derradji steps into the spotlight on this latest sneaky release from Stilove4music. While previous releases have tiptoed down the thin white line between disco and house, "Play On" is a purist's dream. These are straightforward, ultra-reverential re-edits of obscure, slept-on and long forgotten disco era tracks. They're pretty darn good, too, offering disco heads a variety of dancefloor flavours. There's squidgy, shuffling electrofunk ("Track 4", which should perhaps be titled "Play On" due to the hooky vocal), vocoder-heavy grooves ("Track 3") and two stunning trips into disco-soul territory (tracks 1 and 2).

Review: More from the ongoing Stilove4music digital reissue series. This double-header of Earth, Wind & Fire reworks pits label boss and 'Past Due' curator Jerome Derradji against Brit re-edit hombres OK MA. Both rework "Symptom Of Survival", offering pleasingly different interpretations. OK MA's mix is a breezy disco delight - a relentlessly positive five-minute re-edit with bells on. The snappy beats, sharp strings and delicious grooves all scream "summer anthem". Derradji, meanwhile, lays down a faintly foreboding mix that brilliantly builds to an exhausting climax. It's constructed from little more than a rock-solid proto-house groove and the original vocal, but it rocks hard.

Review: On this killer three-tracker, Stilove4music boss Jerome Derradji joins forces with acclaimed disco digger and studio knob-twiddler Rahaan for a trip into obscurist disco edit territory. The results are predictably good. As you'd expect, all three tracks have been touched up a little for house floors, but still retain much of their original disco charm. "The Way It Goes" fuses heavy disco-funk with a touch of snappy retro Chicago house flavour, while "Energize Me" offers a four-four rework of a ragging old skool electro groove. "Give It Up", meanwhile, is a delightfully soulful disco-funk excursion that's just begging to be played loud.

Review: For anyone with an interest in the history of house music, this excellent compilation from Jerome Derradji's Still Music imprint should be essential listening. It focuses on the output of two long forgotten Chicago labels, Mitchbal and Chicago Connection Records, during the early to mid 1980s, when electro, new wave and boogie were morphing into house. As such, 122 BPM offers a mix of rare, largely overlooked cuts that bristle with analogue dancefloor intent. There's proto-jack in the shape of Jeanette Thomas's "Shake Your Body" and Z Factor's "I Am The DJ", dubbed-out Chi-town proto house from Mitchbal and Larry Williams, and some terrific bodypoppin' electro from McGhee.