Instruments Of Rapture At Juno Download

Review: Here's the latest installment from the 6th Borough Project, aka Craig Smith and Graeme Clark, and it gets better and better with every release. First off is "Slow Down Baby", a sleazy Love Unlimited-style affair with shimmering strings, analogue bassline and woodblocks. "Change" is also a string-laden affair, with a hankering female vocal straight outta "The Love Boat", while finally "Stratus Quo" picks up the pace with a cut aimed for the dancefloor, a super-funky bassline punctuated by swelling strings and jazzy keys. Highly recommended.

Review: For release number seven, the Instruments of Rapture crew have recruited newcomer Evan Evans for a spot of live bass-wielding Balearic disco bounce. From the moment the skankin' rhythm kicks in - all clipped guitars, bouncing beats and subtle stabs - you'll be hooked. When the mother of all old skool piano lines kicks in two minutes later, you'll be thrusting your arms skywards faster than Didier Drogba in the penalty area. By the time "Repetition" winds down with some sneaky organ fills and sun-soaked Balearic synths, you'll be spent. It's that kind of jam.There's a pair of excellent remixes too, with Art Of Tones and John Daly taking their chance to twist the original into groovesome new shapes. The latter ups the Balearic factor on a deep, string-laden rework, while Art Of Tones abandons the piano in favour of some simple, stripped-down sunniness. If disco-flecked house is your thing, the whole package is essential.

Review: The eighth volume of Instruments Of Rapture's dependable mid tempo bumps sees the label finally get round to releasing the Soul Renegade jam "Darling". This is a track that's been teasing visitors to Craig Smith's Soundcloud page for the best part of a year! An expert reworking of a 60s Vitamin C infused R&B troupe, amidst the undulating bump Smith drops in some reverberant new jack drum fills which add some rhythmic ingenuity to proceedings. Complementing this is the more upwardly mobile filtered boogie house of "Y'All Won't Let Me" which really finds its feet when the big pianos come in. The same track is endowed with remixes from opposite ends of the contemporary disco spectrum with newcomer Craig Bratley switching down the tempo but turning up the low end fatness with some Kenny Dope style midtempo trickery at play. Faze Action come through with a rattling proto electro version which might just be the winner!

Review: Camberwell's finest returns with another finely crafted lesson in disco-tinged house. "Rainbow Road" sees Tornado Wallace making his debut on the Instruments Of Rapture imprint, following memorable cuts for Delusions Of Grandeur and Sleazy Beats. The title track boasts a throbbing arpeggio augmented by sumptuous strings - an altogether more discofied effort than his DoG tackle. Flip over for the bumpin' "Don't Hold Back" - our pick of the bunch here at Juno HQ, if you're asking - with a horizontal groove and stunning vocal snippet. It's so good it even outshines a remix from Instruments main man Graeme The Revenge Clark, whose Strings Of Fife mix, apart from having a title that will make many a techno loving Scotsman chortle, transforms "Rainbow Road" into a sleazy bottom-heavy chugger. Highly recommended.