Review: Volume 127 in the 'Katakana Edits' series finds regular contributor DJ Laurel back in the producer's chair once more. He opens his latest missive with a reworking of Dyke & The Blazers' 1969 funk/soul jam 'Let A Woman Be A Woman', and signs off with his take on 'Red Hot', a track culled from the disco-vibed 1979 debut solo album by former Supreme Mary Wilson. In-between you'll find 'Shout It Out', a rousing little number whose origins are unknown, but that's got a distinctly 'Schoolhouse Rock' kinda vibe about it. Good stuff all round, but 'Red Hot' takes the gold for this reviewer.
Review: Hope you've got your soul shoes on because it's time to do some dancefloor struttin' in the company of DJ Laurel, as for this latest installment in the long-running 'Katakana Edits' series he turns to the 60s and 70s for inspiration. Tracks getting the treatment this time out come from Lou Rawls, Gladys Night & The Pips and most notably The Four Tops, who crop up twice - with 1965's 'I Can't Help Myself' and 1972's 'Jubilee With Soul'. Start with 'I Can't Help Myself' if you're of the Northern persuasion, or 'Let Me...' if you're looking for something a lil' funkier.
Review: Act of Sedition's latest expansive collection of re-edits and reworks, Perfect Pitch, is subtitled 'loose grooves for lazy days' and that's an apt description of the pleasingly warming, afternoon-ready soul, yacht rock and disco revisions on show. The vibe is mostly head-nodding rather than arms aloft, but that's no bad thing. You'll find plenty of playable fare amongst the 13 tracks on show, with our picks including the slow-motion disco-funk of Vibes4YourSoul's 'Dance All Night', Pete Le Freq's tasteful rework of Stevie Wonder classic 'Living For The City', the sun-drenched, loop-powered soul shuffle of Frankee More's 'It's Walter' and the percussion-laden South American disco-reggae madness of 'Rita' by Ferdinand DeBeaufort.
Review: He's probably best known for his many contributions to the long-running 'Katakana Edits' re-edit series, but DJ Laurel - Minsk native Lavr Berzhanin - does actually MAKE original music as well! Here, he teams up with Bruges-based vocalist Oleg Jagger on a sun-drenched (and fairly self-explanatory) slab of Latin-infused funk. Mix-wise, you can choose between the summery Original which puts fluttering Spanish guitar front and centre, an earthier, more stripped-back remix from Prosper & Le Marabout which foregrounds the chanted vocal, or Vito Lalinga's rerub, which is similar to the Original but with a slightly jazzier feel.
Review: The unstoppable behemoth that is the 'Katakana Edits' series reaches Vol 110, with regular contributor DJ Laurel back at the controls. The EP opens with 'What About You' and 'Asking For Trouble', both of which draw on sadly unidentified sources - but think 60s soul/deep funk (Georgie Fame, maybe?) for the former, and blues/country-infused 70s soul for the latter. We then fast-forward to the disco and boogie era, with Melba Moore's 'You Stepped Into My Life' (1978) and the Michael Zager Band's 'Don't Sneak On Me' (1980) both getting the Laurel treatment. All four are very playable, making for a strong addition to the Katakana catalogue.
Review: Perhaps best known for his contributions to the long-running 'Katakana Edits' series, DJ Laurel comes to Spain's Rare Wiri with three very classy disco/boogie re-edits here. First to get the treatment is 'Am I Gonna Be The One', a 1983 cut by Colors, the original of which was a Shep Pettibone production. That's followed by another 1983 gem, 'Sweepin' Off' by High Resolution, AKA Italian producer Stefano Gelante. The source material for closer 'Weak For You' remains unidentified, but you get the general idea! If you like your dancefloor grooves on the smooth 'n' sultry side, you'll dig this EP for sure.
Review: The latest in the long-running 'Katakana Edits' series features five funk reworks, three of which we can identify the source for: Timmy Thomas's 1972 classic 'Why Can't We Live Together', Billy Paul's 'People Power' (1975) and The Four Tops' 'Are You Man Enough?' (1973). 'Stomp The Floor' has us beat, though, and as for 'Don't Stop The Music' - well, it isn't the Yarbrough & Peoples one, and nor is it any of the tracks of the same name by K.I.D, Cascade, Bugz In The Attic, Supermax, Bits & Pieces or Brecker Brothers! But it's a decent lil' funk/boogie groove all the same...
Review: What we have here are 15 contemporary funk and disco nuggets coming courtesy of prolific Greek producer Timewarp Inc and assorted friends and relations. There's a pleasing degree of stylistic variety on offer across the album as a whole, with tracks ranging from Afternoons In Stereo's cool, jazzy 'Party At Dick & Mimi's' to Dubstax's unabashedly cheesy yet strangely irresistible 'Wiggly Bum', via the sultry, sleazy boogie of Dogo Argentino's '2 Minutes To Midnight', a brace of deep house-leaning contributions from Atfunk, and Aris Kokou's Afro-percussive rework of Timewarp Inc's own 'Discogirls', making for a very checkable collection indeed.
Review: The long-running 'Katakana Edits' series rumbles on, with regular contributor DJ Laurel back in the driving seat for #104. He's got us beat when it comes to source material for a couple of the tracks, but 'Ha Chica' is a tropical-style funk/disco cut sporting lively brass flourishes and an infectious sing-song vocal, while 'Strugglin' Together' has a mid-70s funk-soul vibe (think Curtis Mayfield, Bill Withers or even Gil Scott-Heron). Elsewhere on the EP, Laurel revisits William Wilson's raw, Ohio Players-esque 1978 funker 'Up The Downstairs' and Leon Ware's superb 1979 Minnie Riperton cover 'Inside Your Love'.
Review: The 'Katakana Edits' series dives headlong into its second century with a five-tracker from label stalwart DJ Laurel, and the Belarussian re-edit don has dug nice and deep this time out. 'You Are My Everything' is based on The Real Thing's 'You To Me Are Everything' (1976) and 'Everybody Needs Somebody' and Ann Margret's 'Everybody Needs Somebody Sometimes' (1983) gets reworked as 'Everybody Needs Somebody'; the source material for the rest has our disco detectives beat (despite the nagging familiarity of that main riff on 'Take Me'), but that surely just makes these tracks even more effective as DJ weapons!
Review: Katakana Edits first compilation, 2017's "Crate Diggin", was an epic collection of high-grade re-edits, mash-ups and reworks packed to the rafters with tried-and-tested dancefloor treats. This belated follow-up is even more epic, with the popular label squeezing in no less than 50 tracks that variously touch on riotous disco-funk, dub disco, new wave, disco-rock, deep funk, Afro-boogie, swamp funk, Latin beats, boogie, pitched-down chuggers, boogaloo, hip-hop and everything in between. You'd expect that standard to be high - it is a "best of" collection after all - and it is. If you need an instant armoury of scintillating club cuts, look no further.
Review: The latest in the 'Katakana Edits' series comes once more from label regular DJ Laurel, who delivers six soul/funk/disco cuts that, as a rule, seek simply to update the source material for contemporary floors rather than rework anything too radically. That source material this time out includes Herbie Mann's 'Hijack' from 1974, Millie Jackson's 'Never Change Lovers In The Middle Of The Night' from 1979 and Arthur Prysock's 'When Love Is New' from 1976 on a straight disco tip, as well as the lounge-y, Latin vibes of Carmen Costa's 'Bateu, Doeu' from 1973 - the other two have us beat, but all six cuts are very playable.
Review: Under the DJ Laurel alias, Lavr Berzhanin has proved to be one of Katakana Edits' most reliable re-editors of recent times. We've lost count of the number of EPs he's delivered for the prolific imprint, but they're all rather good - as is his latest expansive effort. There's much to get the blood pumping across the six-track salvo, with our favourites including the rubbery, bouncy and glassy-eyed disco bliss of "All I've Got", the soaring, horn-heavy soundscape disco-soul shuffle of "Battend Ships" [sic], the blue-eyed soul goes drum and bass bounce of "Cookie" and the wah-wah guitar sporting two-step soul goodness of closing cut "Annie Mae". In other words, it's another rock solid collection of tried and tested reworks.
Review: Lavr Berzhanin (DJ Laurel) returns with five more re-edited dancefloor nuggets from days gone by. Or perhaps four because, confusingly, raw funk-soul jam 'Hot Pents' comes in two near-identical versions, one 4:06 long and credited to Heavy Funk, one 4:26 long and credited to DJ Laurel. Go figure! Elsewhere, 'Windy City' reworks Lou Rawls' 'Dead End Street' (a 1967 spoken word cut that predated both Last Poets and Gil Scot-Heron), 'Stop Your Teasing' draws on an unknown disco source for inspiration, while finally 'I Don't Need Nobody Else' adds a little more dancefloor oomph to Eddie Kendricks' 1981 soul jam of the same name.
Review: Five more vintage cuts get a 21st Century refix from the ever-prolific Katakana camp, this time with DJ Laurel at the helm. The Chi-Lites' 'You Don't Have To Go' from 1976 is first to get the treatment, followed by Razzy Bailey's 'I Hate Hate', a 1974 country-soul gem that was something of a northern soul anthem and here gets served up in Disco Rework and Funk Rework flavours. Those first three rubs are all quite faithful to their respective originals; more liberties are taken with Benny Golson's 1978 rare groover 'I'm Always Dancing To The Music', which gets a boogiefied makeover and an added rap vocal, before finally Sam Cooke gets funked up and just slightly retitled on 'Stay By Me'.
Review: Chopshop regular DJ Laurel returns to Katakana Edits - an imprint he's graced a number of times before - with a five-track selection of tried-and-tested revisions. He begins with a rolling revision of a full-throated disco-funk slammer ("Jam, Jam, Jam") before whipping off his shirt and dancing towards peak-time disco release via the spiraling madness of "I Will Get You Some Help". Those seeking loopy, piano-driven peak-time insanity should head for the bluesy brilliance of "Going For Another One", while "Just A Matter of Time" is an epic, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink slab of synth-laden AOR disco. Fittingly, he finishes with a bustling, tooled-up take on Evelyn "Champagne" King classic "Shame".
Review: The Katakana Edits series reaches #70. DJ Laurel - also known for his work on Greek label Chopshop - is once more in charge of the virtual razorblade and sticky tape for this latest collection, which draws largely on source material from the 70s soul pantheon. 'I Can't Stop Ya' adds an outsourced spoken vocal and some fine sax noodling to a Ty Karim nugget of (nearly) the same name, 'It Only Happens' lends the late, great Aretha some extra lounge-y swing, while 'The More I Want' dares to take on the Teddy Pendergrass classic and actually manages to get away with it.
Review: Volume 66 of the Katakana Edits is nothing but vibes from start to finish, and surely exactly what we need in the blazing summer months - edits, edits, and nothing but more edits! SO|KA's opening "Grease" is a dubby, weighty house chugger that blends effortlessly with juat about any form of dance tune, while DJ Laurel's "Lost In The Crowd" is a disco charmer that leads with horns and is backed by pumping beats, leaving the final "All Or Nothing" to provide the seductive charms thanks to a gentle r&b charm. Beautiful stuff.
Review: 62 collections deep and still blazing up any party in a 1000 mile radius; Katakana deliver yet another fun and funk-fuelled package. All laced with a heavy rhythmic theme, attention to groove detail is paid throughout as we're treated to range of classic and deeply dug edits. "Galaxy" sets the tone with a sleazy strutting war cry before we're hurled into a Latin frenzy on both the sultry "Camina" and the bull-fighting "Descarga". Elsewhere "Leroy Loves Ya" brings the soulful touch and "JB World" closes with a little psychedelic mystique.
Review: Oh dear, the Katakana edits are back once again, and that means pure and vibrant disco-house vibes for all shapes and sizes. Fray Bentos returns in fine style with two cuts, starting with the bumpy, utterly groovy "Body Down", followed by the deeper, more majestic jazzy feel of "Night Giver" - oh, those strings! DJ Laurel's up next, bringing through some proper stylish funkiness with "Yes I Know", sampling the late, great Pino Daniele on the vocals, while "More Shame" goes for the tribal touch, pushing through some lovely horns and a magnificent sway of seductive trumpets for that sexy feel. Yet more Katakana goodness!
Review: This decidedly epic collection marks Katakana Edits's first foray into the compilation market and is designed as a "best-of" style outing. It boasts 30 reworks, mash-ups, remixes and re-edits gleamed from the prolific imprint's first 50 singles. Naturally, club-ready material comes thick and fast, with a multitude of genres - think swamp funk, disco, dub disco, electrofunk, Italo-disco, hip-hop, reggae and dancehall - and wide variety of tempos represented. Naturally, some of the reworks tend towards the well known, though there are also plenty of rubs of lesser-known gems for those who want to dig deeper than familiar peak-time anthems. Most importantly, the standard remains impressively high throughout.
Little Prince - "Getting Down To Cuba" - (6:40) 118 BPM
Goji Berry - "My Man" - (3:44) 109 BPM
Goji Berry - "In The Heat" - (6:58) 98 BPM
DJ Laurel - "Right On" - (4:14) 72 BPM
Review: The 54th EP from prolific rework imprint Katakana Edits is a triple-header, featuring hot new cut-jobs from Goji Berry, Little Prince and DJ Laurel. The latter's "Right On" is an undeniably sweet and soulful affair, with the producer underpinning slick '80s soul vocals and rising disco-funk horns with a low-slung, filter-heavy breakbeat groove. Although Little Prince's "Getting Down To Cuba" is an undeniably cheery peak-time affair - he adds a little house flavour to a Caribbean disco classic - the undoubted star of the show is Goji Berry. The producer serves up a trio of edits, with the hybrid Italo-disco/ electro-funk jauntiness of "I Need" and slow-mo, saucer-eyed vibes of "In The Heat" standing out.
Review: Thunder Jam's latest release is something of a sprawling epic; a 23-track "Invasion" featuring some of the hottest names in the re-edit and nu-disco scenes, alongside contributions from lesser-known talents. There's much to admire throughout, from the low-slung boogie bass and cut glass disco strings of Phil Da Burn's "Wallflower" and the spacey synth-funk of Funk Bank's wiggly "Jamming With The Thunder", to the bouncy disco/New Jersey garage fusion of BOI's "The Gift" and the straightened-out sunshine soul of Dee Bunk's "Little Brown Eye Girl". Throw in solid contributions from Don Dayglo, Belabouche, C Da Afro and Andy Buchan, and you've got a pleasingly varied set of floor-friendly excursions.
