Dear Diary, today we received a copy of DJ Hybrid's long-awaited debut album Diary Of An International Junglist on Liondub International. It's 20 tracks fat and, as you'd expect from such a prolific and hard working artist, it's well worth the wait. Featuring collabs with the likes of Rider Shafique, Diligent Fingers, Madrush MC, Redders and MC Foxy, there's a lot of next level action to unpack but instant head-slicers include the space age purrs and twists of 'Find Your Way', the menacing darkness and sparse funk of 'Pull Out Ya Piece' and the bouncing and swagger of 'Live For Yourself.' These are just some the many stand-out bangers from an album by one of the scene's most consistent leading lights in the last 10 years. Made for junglists, by a junglist. It doesn't get better than this.
The ever-dependable 'Katakana Edits' series rolls on, and while this latest installment might not win PECOE any deep diggin' brownie points, it does pack some very serviceable dancefloor-friendly reworks of classic cuts from days gone by. Leading the charge for this reviewer is 'Ice & Snow', which does unspeakable but very satisfactory things to Led Zeppelin's 'Immigrant Song', but elsewhere you get a fresh take on 'Jingo', 'Grandmaster Mash' fuses 'White Lines' with chunks of the rap from 'The Message', while 'Bold Sister' revisits James Brown's 'Bold Soul Sister' - leaving only the 60s deep funk source for 'You Can't Hide' unidentified.
Here's something of a surprise: a collaborative EP featuring the combined talents of Underground System Afrobeat member Peter Matson and sometime Escort bass player (and Razor N Tape co-founder) Jason Kriveloff AKA J Kriv. Given their respective musical histories, you'd expect a blend of NYC disco, Afrobeat, synth-boogie and deep house, and that's exactly what they've delivered. Their hybrid style is probably best exemplified by the late '80s Todd Terry-meets-Afro-synth brilliance of 'Ewesse Ye', which is subsequently given a deeper and more percussive Afro-house spin by Auntie Flo. The fusion fun continues on the horn-sporting Afro-boogie brilliance of 'New Friend' and 'Bigtime', where righteous Afrobeat horns surge above a tactile deep house groove.
Man of the moment Michael Janson's is back on Knee Deep In Sound to follow up the anthemic "Go" in collaboration with Cecille's Nick Curly earlier this year. "Evolver" is a serving of tough rolling funky house with chunky percussive elements that is aimed squarely at the main room dancefloor. Equally peak time minded is second offering "Soul Shaker" which ventures into hypnotic tribal territory and is perfect for those heads-down moments. For the remix they have reeled in the ascendant Hungarian Capeesh Society (Alliwant/Politics Of Dancing) who takes the title track into deeper and more melodic territory.
Dustin Zahn follows his recent Feed the Fire release on Rekids with his second artist album. As befits a producer who has been making techno for close to two decades, this is a diverse, expertly weighted work. Both "Tell Me About Paradise" and "Lucid Dreams" are insistent, firing grooves that resound to steely percussion, and blasts of Midwest synths. Meanwhile "Tangie Groove" is a looped house track and "Smoking In Silence" sees Zahn go farther down this route, as vocal samples are melded with insistent stabs. "Days Like These" draws on Detroit techno influences with Zahn deploying spaced out pads over rickety drums, while in sharp contrast, "Shark Rodeo" is a slamming peak-time affair, led by wave upon wave of filters.
Cast your memories back to 2011 and you'll find it was then that Peter Major, aka OPOLOPO made his debut on Local Talk with a presentation of Actual Proof. Having gone on to work with Toolroom Records, If It Ain't Jazz, G.A.M.M. and Vive La Musique since, Major has been invited back for the first time since 2019 to 'tweak' his personal favourites from the Local Talk back cat. This includes some rare numbers from Soulphiction and Jamie 326 next to some straight up remixes of Urban Sound Lab Presents Miss Yankey and Wil Maddams - alongside OPOLOPO & Actual Proof numbers "Silkworms" and dubby broken beat slice "Hubble".
